Ruth Gipps

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Ruth Dorothy Louisa Gipps MBE (born  February 20, 1921 in Bexhill-on-Sea , East Sussex ; †  February 23, 1999 in Eastbourne , ibid) was an English pianist , oboist , conductor , teacher and composer .

Life

The daughter of a British violinist and a Swiss piano teacher was considered a child prodigy. At the age of four she performed as a young pianist in London's Grotrian Hall. She composed her first published piece when she was eight. At 15, she passed the entrance exam for the Royal College of Music in London, where she was accepted in January 1937. There she studied composition with Reginald Owen Morris , Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams , oboe with Léon Goossens and piano with Arthur Alexander and later with Tobias Matthay . She continued her studies at the University of Durham , graduating in 1941. Her compositional breakthrough came in 1942 with the orchestral poem Knight in Armor under Sir Henry Wood at the Last Night of the Proms and finally in 1946 with the 2nd Symphony, Op. 30.

In addition to her career as a composer, she was constantly active as an instrumental soloist - as a pianist, oboist and English horn -Solistin. In 1944 she became an oboist in the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra . In the male-dominated music scene, she repeatedly encountered reservations, although contemporaries described her as an assertive, argumentative musician. In addition, as a composer, she openly rejected atonality , twelve-tone music and serialism , and with this stance came increasingly into conflict with the post-war modernism that set the tone at the time. In February 1948, at the age of almost 27, she completed her dissertation at Durham University, became the conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir in the same year and landed another popular success in 1949 with the premiere of her Piano Concerto op. 34.

Due to problems with her wrist, she ended her solo career in 1954 and since then has worked exclusively as a composer and conductor. But she was denied a position as director of a large orchestra. Conducting, she later wrote in her autobiography, at that time still seemed “unthinkable” for women, was considered “almost indecent”. In 1955 she founded her own London Repertoire Orchestra for young musicians and in 1961 the Chanticleer Orchestra , a professional ensemble that regularly performed works by contemporaries and made debuts by soloists such as Iona Brown and Julian Lloyd Webber possible. She also taught in London - as a professor from 1959 to 1966 at Trinity College of Music and from 1967 to 1977 at the Royal College of Music, later as a lecturer at Kingston Polytechnic in 1979 .

She wrote five symphonies, which she considered her main work, further orchestral works, concerts, chamber, choir, piano music and songs. Her symphonies in particular show influences from Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax , Edward Elgar and Gustav Holst ; stylistically, with sweeping melodies, she is in the tradition of British late and post-Romanticism .

Works (selection)

  • The Fairy Shoemaker (first published composition, 1929)
  • Mazeppa's Ride op.1 for female choir and orchestra (1937)
  • Variations on Byrd's "Non Nobis" op. 7 for small orchestra (1939)
  • Knight in Armor op.8 for orchestra (1940)
  • Sea Nymph op.14 , ballet music for small orchestra (1941)
  • Jane Gray Fantasy op.15 for viola and string ensemble (1941)
  • Quintet op.16 for oboe, clarinet and string trio (1941)
  • Brocade op.17 for piano quartet (1941)
  • Rhapsody op.18 for soprano without words and small orchestra (1941)
  • Oboe Concerto op.20 (1941)
  • 1st Symphony in F minor op.22 (1942)
  • Violin Concerto op.24 (1943)
  • Death on the Pale Horse op.25 for orchestra (1943)
  • 2nd symphony op. 30 (1945)
  • The Cat op.32, cantata for alto, baritone, choir and orchestra (1947)
  • Piano Concerto op.34 (1948)
  • Goblin Market op.40, Ton-Poem for two sopranos, choir, strings or piano (1953)
  • Concerto for violin, viola and small orchestra op.49 (1957)
  • 3rd Symphony op.57 (1965)
  • Horn Concerto op.58 (1968)
  • 4th Symphony, op.61 (1972)
  • 5th Symphony op.64 (1982)
  • Ambarvalia op.70 for small orchestra (1988)
  • Sinfonietta op.73 for ten wind instruments and tam-tam (1989)
  • Cool Running Water op.77 for bass flute and piano (1991)

literature

  • Lewis Foreman: Ruth Gipps. (PDF) In: CD booklet. Chandos Records , 2018, pp. 16-23 , accessed December 4, 2019 .
  • Jill Halstead, Lewis Foreman, JNF Laurie-Beckett:  Gipps, Ruth. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  • Jill Halstead: Ruth Gipps . Anti-Modernism, Nationalism and Difference in English Music. Ashgate, Aldershot 2006, ISBN 978-0-7546-0178-4 .
  • Raymond Holden: Gipps, Ruth Dorothy Louisa. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
  • David Wright: Ruth Gipps. In: wrightmusic.net. 1998 (detailed biography and catalog raisonné).;
  • Margaret Campbell: Ruth Gipps. A woman of substance. In: The Maud Powell Signature, Vol 1, No. 3. 1996 (essay on life and work).;
  • Simon Brackenborough: In Search of Ruth Gipps. In: Classic platform Corymbus. July 20, 2017 (detailed article on life and work).;
  • Ruth Gipps. In: Contemporary Music Review, Vol. 11. 1994(Lexicon article).;

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Lienhard: British-Swiss symphonist. In: Swiss music newspaper . May 31, 2019, accessed December 4, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d David Wright: Ruth Gipps. In: wrightmusic.net. 1998 (detailed biography and catalog raisonné).;
  3. ^ Jill Halstead, Lewis Foreman, JNF Laurie-Beckett:  Gipps, Ruth. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  4. ^ A b Margaret Campbell: Ruth Gipps. A woman of substance. In: The Maud Powell Signature, Vol 1, No. 3. 1996 (essay on life and work).;
  5. ^ Jill Halstead: Ruth Gipps. 2006, archived from the original on August 30, 2015 (brief content of the book and reviews).;
  6. ↑ quoted from: Jill Halstead: The Woman Composer. Creativity and the Gendered Politics of Musical Composition . Ashgate, Aldershot 1997, ISBN 1-85928-183-4 .
  7. ↑ Biography in Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia
  8. ^ Bret Johnson: Echoes of English Music. In: The Guardian . March 30, 1999 (obituary). ;>
personal data
SURNAME Gipps, Ruth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gipps, Ruth Dorothy Louisa (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Bexhill-on-Sea
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1999
Place of death Eastbourne