Day 249
Peggy Glanville-Hicks: Sinfonia di Pacifica
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
Richard Mills
Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990) was one of the first, if not the first, Australian female composer to take a mark on the international music scene. She had a thorough musical education in England and Europe, studying with, among others, Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Nadia Boulanger.
This symphony was inspired by a voyage over the Pacific Ocean from New Orleans to Australia - it was written in 1952 and first performed the following year. It it is three quite short movements. The first is a fairly typical Walton-Hidemith style - I didn’t find it particularly memorable. The other two movements were more distinctive. The middle movement was a beautiful lyric piece with strong melodic ideas for the solo oboe. The finale was a lively folk-dance/jazz inspired piece - lightweight but good fun. It reminded me of the Juba dance in the Florence Price symphony which I played in last year.
I don’t know how typical of Glanville-Hicks’ work this piece is, but anybody who could write that slow movement definitely deserves our admiration. There is a recording of her opera Sappho available, and that might be worth exploring.
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