For over seven decades, a powerful piece of British musical heritage has sat in the shadows. But this July, the all-female vocal ensemble Corra Sound is set to change that. In a landmark project, the choir will perform and produce the world-first professional recording of Ruth Gipps’ dramatic cantata, Goblin Market.
The concert will take place on Friday, 3rd July at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford. A pre-concert conversation with Gipps’s daughter-in-law Dr Victoria Rowe and prominent writer and critic Jessica Duchen, offering a rare glimpse into the life of a composer who was once a “formidable force” in a male-dominated industry. The musical programme will also feature settings of Christina Rossetti’s poetry by other notable 20th-century composers, celebrating a threefold celebration of female creativity.
The landmark recording, partnering with the Great Little Orchestra and Convivium Records, will take place on Saturday 11th July with a release date scheduled for early 2027. Corra Sound has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the production costs of the performance and recording, inviting the public to contribute to the project, helping to bring this important work to a global audience.
This venture marks the historic and long-awaited world premiere recording of this powerful masterpiece, rich in themes of temptation, sisterhood, and female solidarity, and will be only the second UK performance of the work in 70 years. The project stands as a threefold celebration of female creativity bringing together the iconic poetry of Christina Rossetti, the masterful and long-overlooked choral writing of Ruth Gipps, and the voices of Corra Sound – an upper voice ensemble dedicated to bringing the works of female composers out of the shadows.
Ruth Gipps was a child prodigy and a prolific composer of five symphonies and numerous concertos, yet she faced significant institutional resistance throughout her career.
“Ruth Gipps was a formidable force – a composer, conductor, and advocate who carved out space for women in a profession that frequently excluded them,” says Dr Amy Bebbington, Corra Sound Founder and Director. “By performing and recording this work, we are highlighting a lineage of female creativity that has been side-lined for too long. Goblin Market is brimming with colour and emotional intensity and demands to be heard.”
“Corra Sound is an outstanding ensemble, brilliantly led,” says Neil Ferris, Director of the BBC Symphony Chorus. “This project forms an important part of their pioneering mission to uncover new repertoire and celebrate the works of often little-known female composers. The work they do is both ground-breaking and utterly essential to our choral music landscape.”
Dr Leah Broad, award-winning British musicologist says: “Gipps was prodigiously gifted and fearlessly determined and yet her impact on British music as both conductor and composer is still yet to be fully realised. This vital project by Corra Sound is a much-needed step towards redressing some of this historical imbalance, and bringing to light an important work in our musical heritage.”
Ruth Gipps’ Daughter-in-law, Dr Victoria Rowe, says “We are so grateful to Corra Sound for their vital role in preserving and championing Gipps’ musical legacy, bringing her work to a wider audience and ensuring that she finally gets the recognition she deserves.”
This ambitious undertaking is a grassroots effort to preserve a musical legacy. Corra Sound has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the production costs of this historic recording.
Support the Project: You can contribute to the Crowdfunder to help bring this work out of the shadows: Support Corra Sound here.
Book Your Tickets: Join the audience in Guildford on July 3rd for this rare musical revival. Book tickets via Eventbrite.
About Goblin Market Composed in 1953, Goblin Market is a cantata for two soprano soloists, three-part female chorus, and string orchestra. Based on Christina Rossetti’s 1862 sensuous poem, the work is noted for its lush, late-Romantic harmonies and dramatic storytelling. Despite its exceptional quality, following its premiere in the mid-20th century, Goblin Market fell into obscurity. This is the first time Goblin Market has been performed in the UK for 70 years.
About Ruth Gipps (1921–1999) A child prodigy who performed at the Wigmore Hall at the age of eight, Ruth Gipps was one of the most prolific British composers of the 20th century. She composed five symphonies, numerous concertos, and choral works and even founded her own orchestra so that her works could be performed. Despite her brilliance, she faced significant gender discrimination throughout her career, particularly as a female conductor and composer in a male-dominated classical music world. While a recognized prodigy, her career was marked by missed opportunities, institutional resistance, and critical marginalization.
Ruth Gipps composing at her Steinway pianoGoblin Market scoreRuth GippsCorra SoundAmy Bebbington
An interview with cellist Louise McMonagle to coincide with the release of her recording of Round by the Ness by Trish Clowes, to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022
Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music and who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
My parents sent my sisters and I along to the local music centre on Saturday mornings – it was called Bannerman Music School at the time, now called East Glasgow Music School. I am certain they had no idea how this would shape the rest of my life! It was here that I had my first cello lesson aged 6 and was lucky to have a very special teacher. Pamela Duffy had studied at Guildhall in London before returning to Glasgow. She was a buzz of inspiration and impossibly exciting stories from the big smoke, and she made lessons incredibly fun! Without this early influence I’m sure it would never have crossed my mind that I could end up a cellist in London!
After that there are so many influences and inspirations we would be here all day. But I want to mention a couple that stand out. When I was 12 I joined the Music School of Douglas Academy, a state funded centre for excellence in Glasgow. I can’t speak highly enough of my education there, where every music teacher made a huge impact on me. In our first term I remember the composition teacher William Sweeney playing us Alban Berg Violin Concerto. I heard only a random confusion of notes and remember us 12 year olds sneaking glances at each other – what is this! A few years later we listened to the piece again in music history and I was so shocked to discover it now sounded beautiful and was a piece of music that made sense to me. I remember having a little moment where I saw how much I must have learned without realising it.
Another really warm memory of my formative musical years was my time in Glasgow Schools Symphony Orchestra, who met once a year for a summer residency at Castle Toward on the Argyll peninsula. It can’t be overstated how magical it was for a bunch of city kids to spend a week by the sea in a remote castle! The conductor of the orchestra was composer John Maxwell Geddes, an extraordinary man and an inspiration to a whole generation of musicians from Glasgow. We often played pieces that he wrote specially for us, his Castle Suite for example, which I instantly loved. I remember being fascinated by the way the time signature kept changing!
When I look back at these experiences, and then look at the path I have taken it hammers home to me how important working with young people is, and the impact it can have.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Finding an instrument! This is a huge issue for string players in particular. I moved to London when I was 18 to study at the Royal Academy of Music, and I couldn’t believe my luck when they loaned me their stunning Testore cello for a number of years. It was a gorgeous instrument with incredible depth of sound. I’d never had an old cello before and enjoyed imagining how the cello had probably played my repertoire countless times before me! The experience will stay with me forever. But of course eventually it had to be returned, and on my budget searching for a cello to follow it was an impossible task!
Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?
During the pandemic I took a very unexpected turn and decided to develop a YouTube channel. The idea came from my love for performing cello repertoire that steps outside the mainstream. Over the last 10 years I have worked on so many wonderful contemporary cello pieces directly with composers, but it struck me as sad that I had no record of most of these live performances. In lockdown I suddenly found myself with lots of time on my hands so I decided to challenge myself to start recording.
Live music has thankfully now returned, but I enjoyed my lockdown project so much that I’ve decided to continue on my mission. Today, on International Women’s Day, I have added a new piece written specially for me by composer and jazz saxophonist Trish Clowes. Although her background is jazz, Trish listens widely and her compositions have many influences. Trish has always held a particular fascination with a cello piece she heard me perform years ago, Heinz Holliger Chaconne from the Sacher Variations. It’s a piece that showcases many extended techniques and timbres that the cello can offer. Inspired by this, Trish decided to write Round By The Ness for me and I was intrigued to see how she took some of these techniques and translated them into her own musical language. You can watch the performance here:
Which particular works/composers do you think you perform best?
These days I’m most known for performing music by living composers, and playing in contemporary music group the Riot Ensemble.
I joined the group 5 years ago and have given around 200 world and UK premieres by composers from more than 30 countries in that time! I’ve learned so much through this experience – unique notation, extended techniques, prepared cello… I honestly think nothing could surprise me anymore! What I love about this genre of music is the huge contrast of styles and sounds I’m exposed to. And the beauty of it is, there is so much variety in the music of the last 50 years that I think you can find something to suit every taste.
What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?
Listening to other performers is the most inspiring thing for me. Any genre, style instrument. Dancers, gymnasts, actors. Watching performers who communicate and who make you forget about everything else – that is the most inspiring thing to me.
How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
When I’m listening to music a lot of the time I want to hear something new. Most of my repertoire choices come from listening journeys online where one discovery leads to another in an endless chain.
When I hear something new that I love, I’m instantly thinking where and when would be the perfect situation to programme it. I always loved making mixtapes back in the day, and I like to think of programming in the same way, handpicked for each audience.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
I’ve played in some wonderful halls around the world – Bucharest, Berlin, Shanghai, a stage built off the side of a cliff in Italy, Alhambra in Granada, but my favourite performances tend to be in smaller intimate venues where you feel more connection to the audience. I enjoy playing in settings where people don’t normally hear cello, where you feel you can surprise them and maybe even make them think differently about classical music. I have worked a lot with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra who regularly tour the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and playing in those community halls have been some of my favourite performances.
What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?
Music is for everyone. A lot of people tell me they don’t listen to classical music yet they experience it in films and tv and find that they love it! Some people feel classical music isn’t for them because they never had the chance to learn an instrument. The number one way to reach more people is to invest in music education, and tackle the notion that classical music is just for the privileged. Schemes like Big Noise in Scotland, and Every Child A Musician in Newham east London are visionary, where every child in a whole year group is given an instrument and regular lessons completely free. I wish every child in the country could have this experience as part of their school education.
Classical music can also be associated with a lot of pomp and circumstance – evening dresses, tailcoats and bow ties, knowing when to clap, grand buildings. This might be glamour and showbiz to some, but can seem old fashioned, too formal, or alienating to others. “Why does that violinist get to bow on their own?” someone once asked me after an orchestral concert. I think we forget that concerts are a string of traditions and rituals that can be baffling to the uninitiated. While I hope there will always be space for traditions and a bit of showbiz in our presentation, I think classical music also needs to exist outside of concert halls – in schools as I’ve said, but also in less formal spaces, and at different times of day. There is a thriving music series in London called Daylight Music. Concerts take place on Saturday afternoons, and tea and cake is served. The curator lines up three sets with performers from different genres, and what draws the audience is the chance to experience something new, to hear styles of music they might not normally hear, all in a comfortable friendly setting. Time and time again this series has come up when I chat to people who have never attended a ‘classical concert’ but tell me they enjoyed watching an instrumentalist at one of these events. Their new season will be announced soon so do check it out!
Growing audiences is a big and complex topic, but certainly investing in music education, rethinking the formal concert paradigm, and more risk taking and imaginative curation have important roles to play.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
In January 2019 Riot Ensemble travelled to Reykjavik to play at Dark Music Days festival. The snow was deeper than my boots and daylight came only for a few hours in the middle of the day. We were giving the world premiere of a piece written for us by Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas called Solstices. It’s a 70 minute ensemble piece to be performed in pitch black darkness. We’ve played it in a few venues now and the challenge is always getting the hall dark enough… covering every crack and even emergency exit signs has not always been possible. But at this venue, the darkness was perfect and so intense that I could not see my own hand when I held it in front of my face! The ensemble had a central position in the hall and the audience were seated all around us. I think it’s true that we listen differently in the dark. The atmosphere was like no other concert I’ve ever experienced and I’m not sure anything could ever quite compare to my memory of it!
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
Having concerts that excite me. Playing with other musicians who inspire me. Reaching the end of a concert and feeling I did a good job, that I gave everything I had.
What advice would you give to young/aspiring musicians?
Listen listen listen to music and artists you love, admire and who inspire you! Practice! And know that it happens in small steps, so have the courage to put yourself forward for the summer school/audition/performance opportunity that you have been mulling over, and incrementally one thing will lead to another!
What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about which you think we should be?
Cuts to music and instrumental lessons in schools. Classical music won’t have a future if it is only for the privileged.
Scottish cellist in London, Louise McMonagle is a versatile performer who enjoys making music in many environments.
Highlights include winning the Ernst Von Siemens Ensemble prize (2020), performing at Wigmore Hall (London), playing as soloist in Boulez Messagesquisse at the VIVA Cello Festival (Switzerland), recording Berio Sequenza XIV with Four Ten Media, and performing with eminent jazz musicians such as Trish Clowes (BBC NGA), Kit Downes (Mercury prize nominee), Evan Parker etc.
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the three composers every truly cultured music student knows (as well as their scales and arpeggios of course). Together they are known as the First Viennese School.
Now classical music history books and the enormous performance bias (one-third of all classical performances are either of Mozart or Beethoven) make it seem that these were the only three composers who wrote anything worthwhile in the Classical era.
This is so far from the case. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were part of a huge music scene in Vienna. Actually these three composers spent most of their lives hanging out with various highly regarded musicians and respected composers, most of whom were women.
So, in an expansion of the First Viennese School, I give you the ‘Vienna 10’.
1. Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) Austrian
In the 1740s Haydn was a struggling musician living in a leaky attic room in Vienna, the clichéd image of a composer found in romantic novels everywhere. Several floors below lived the Martines family and Haydn gave the daughter Marianna Martines piano lessons.
2. Marianna Martines/Marianna von Martinez (May 4, 1744 – December 13, 1812) Viennese
Marianna grew up to become a pianist and composer. Being of a certain class she was never allowed to work professionally as a musician but she was very well respected. Marianna was known for her regular musical salons, well attended by all the hobnobs and hotshots on the Vienna scene, including Mozart and Salieri. Marianna was good friends with them both and performed with them on several occasions. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Accademia Filharmonia in 1773, the prestigious academy that Mozart was admitted to three years earlier. Her works number nearly 200 and include the first known symphony to be written by a woman, the Dixit Dominus she wrote for her entrance to the Accademia, several cantatas and keyboard sonatas along with three harpsichord concertos.
In the 1780s Haydn was back in Vienna, hanging out with his old pupil Marianna and in 1784 he met:
3. Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791). Austrian
Mozart was born in Salzburg and moved to Vienna in 1781. He met Haydn in 1784 and he was good friends with Marianna Martines. Mozart and Haydn were frequent guests at Marianna’s musical salons, Mozart and Marianna frequently played duets together, and it is thought that Mozart wrote his Piano Concerto in D for Marianna.
Mozart did also go on to teach music. One of his pupils was:
4. Josepha Barbara Auernhammar (25 September 1758 – 30 January 1820) – Viennese pianist and composer
Mozart taught her from 1781. Josepha and Mozart played together often, both in public and at private concerts. Mozart dedicated Violin Sonatas to her and she performed several of his piano sonatas. Sadly only one of her compositions has been recorded, this delightful 6 Variations on a Hungarian theme.
Josepha Barbara Auernhammar also went on to perform works by fellow Mozart pupil:
5. Anton Eberl (13 June 1765 – 11 March 1807). Eberl was born in Vienna and was taught by Mozart from around 1781. Many of his works were misattributed to Mozart. He wrote many piano concertos, including dedicating his Piano Concerto to Josepha Auernhammer. Josepha Auernhammer performed his Piano Concerto in E Flat.
A good friend and benefactor of Eberl was:
6. Anton Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825), Italian by birth, and supposedly Mozart’s great rival, Salieri lived and worked in Vienna from the 1770s onwards as a court director at the Austrian court. Salieri was a well known composer of opera and a conductor, known to conduct Haydn’s The Creation with the composer in attendance. He was a frequent guest at Marianna Martines’ parties and he was also a sought after teacher. He wrote this organ concerto as a commission from one of his pupils. Maria Theresia von Paradis.
7. Maria Theresa von Paradis (May 15, 1759 – February 1, 1824) Viennese. Blind since chilodhood, Maria Theresa von Paradis became an extraordinary pianist and composer. She wrote a ton of music including operas, piano concertos and sonatas. Unfortunately most of it has been lost except her Sicilienne, a popular piece for cello.
Even this one short but gorgeous work is only spuriously connected with her. As well as her own compositions Maria Theresia also commissioned music by Haydn and commissioned Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.18 in Bb Major. Her father Joseph was court councillor to Empress Maria Theresa. Empress Marie Theresa oversaw much of the musical activity in Vienna and was a great patron of the arts. Marianna Martines performed for her while still a child. It’s very likely the two pianists knew each other, especially given Marianna’s role as hostess of popular parties.
Now we come to:
8. Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) German, moved to Vienna in 1792. Taught and mentored by Haydn, Beethoven also received some assistance from Salieri. Among the thousands of pieces he wrote in Vienna was his Appassionata Sonata.
The first person to perform the Appassionata sonata from autograph was:
9. Marie Bigot (3 March 1786– 16 September 1820) French teacher, composer and pianist. She moved in Vienna in 1804. Beethoven was so impressed with her performance he gave her his copy of the Apassionata. Marie Bigot was also friends with Salieri and Haydn. Again hardly any of her music has been recorded except this Suite D’Etudes which is wonderfully strident and full of power chords.
Marie Bigot returned to Paris in 1808 and introduced Beethoven’s music to Parisian society. She also went on to teach the Mendelssohn siblings.
The last member of the ‘Viennese 10’ was:
10. Marianne Auenbrugger/Marianne D’Auenbrugg (19 July 1759– 25 August 1782). Viennese.
A student of Haydn and Salieri, she was a highly regarded composer and sought after pianist and Haydn dedicated six sonatas to her including this one.
Only one recording of her work exists – her phenomenal Sonata in E Flat major, published by Salieri after her death.
There you have it, the Vienna 10. 10 awesome composers including 5 women who were completely wiped from the history books, until now.
Let’s rewrite the story.
Elizabeth de Brito is a gender equality champion, classical music radio producer, researcher, writer and obsessive Florence Price fan. She is the Producer of The Daffodil Perspective, a radio show which champions gender equality in classical music.
Over on my sister blog A Piano Teacher Writes…. I recently cited two new anthologies of piano music, which on face value seemed a useful addition to the student pianist’s repertoire. On closer inspection, however, I found that one anthology contained not a single piece by a female composer, and the other contained a piece composed by the author, who happens to be a woman. This lack of diversity troubles me – and it’s not some kind of gender identity/feminist virtue signalling on my part, but rather a wish to offer students and piano enthusiasts as broad a range of music as possible. We are so lucky as pianists to have access to a vast repertoire, yet too many anthologies focus on the core canon, which is mostly music written by long dead white guys.
In an ideal scenario, we wouldn’t need to differentiate between male and female composers, but unfortunately while inequality of representation exists in anthologies and concert programmes, I believe it is important to highlight this. And so, as a positive step, I’d like to compile an online resource via this blog of graded piano music written by female composers. I hope this will be of use to teachers and piano students in seeking new repertoire.
Please feel free to submit music for inclusion, ideally with an estimate grade/ability level and a link to the score or publisher information. Use the comment box below or Email Me with your nominations. I have also created a collaborative playlist on Spotify to which you are welcome to add tracks
Here are a few of my own suggestions to get us started:
Sadie Harrison
Lunae – Four Nocturnes for Solo Piano (Advanced/Grade 8/Diploma/University of York Music Press)
Northern Lights (Intermediate/Grade 5-6/UYMP)
Four Jazz Portraits (Advanced/Grade 8/Diploma/UYMP)
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