Dear readers, today I am very happy to bring you an interview with the one and only Byron Schenkman. Brilliant pianist, harpsichordist and Artistic Director of the Byron Schenkman & Friends concert series in Seattle, Byron is an inspiration to me as well as a dear friend. Our conversation today centers around an upcoming online performance which may be of great interest to Pride & Practicing readers: a program featuring six centuries of piano music by women. Mark your calendars for February 27 at 7 PM PST! And in the meantime, let’s find out more about it…..
P&P: Tell us a little about your upcoming program featuring 6 centuries of music by women composers.
BS: Women have been not only composing but actually publishing music for hundreds of years! One of the first was Maddalena Casulana who published three volumes of madrigals in the sixteenth century. We'll start with a keyboard intabulation (or adaptation) of one of her madrigals first published in 1570. We'll then continue up through the centuries with music by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Anna Bon, Clara Schumann, Teresa Carreno, Margaret Bonds, and finally a beautiful short work by Mari Esabel Valverde, a brilliant young American composer.
P&P: What led you to the point of wanting to design a program like this?
BS: There is so much amazing repertoire which is sadly overlooked merely because its composers don't fit the mold of what we expect a great composer to be, i.e. white and male. We're getting ready to do our first live concert in over two years on March 6, featuring all music by women composers from the Braoque Era (details at https://byronandfriends.org/women-of-the-baroque/ ) and we wanted to have something to offer our online audiences as well. Our online program includes selections from some of our past concerts -- including fabulous performances by William Chapman Nyaho and Joseph Williams -- as well as some pieces I filmed specially for this program.
P&P: How does offering this program fit in with your sense of values or personal mission as an artist?
BS: I believe that at this point in history we all have a responsibility to use whatever talents, resources, and privilege we may have to counteract the negative effects of patriarchy and white supremacy. I feel lucky to be able to do this work in such a joyful way!
P&P: Why should audiences today care about any music from centuries ago, no matter who it’s by? What is alive for you in this music from the past?
BS: I think we can learn a lot about ourselves and our humanity by exploring other cultures, including cultures of the past. I have a personal connection to the "classical" tradition of European music from the 17th through 19th centuries because that is the music I grew up studying in depth. What interests me now is placing that music in historical context while also exploring its relevance to our society today. I feel inspired to question and expand the "canon" and to undo the prevailing censorship (both conscious and unconscious) of non-white and non-male composers.
P&P: What stands out to you about the lives and careers of the composers on your upcoming program?
BS: Wow: so many! Here are a few examples. Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was one of the most famous and successful musicians of her time. She was one of only four French composers of any gender who published harpsichord music in the 17th century and she also published some of the first violin sonatas in France as well as three books of cantatas and an opera. And yet she has been left out of most music history texts, anthologies, concert programs, and recordings until quite recently. Margaret Bonds was the first Black soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933 and returned the next year to premiere a work by her teacher and friend Florence Price. Bonds and Price should be two of the most famous American composers but have only recently begun to get some notice. And Mari Esabel Valverde stands out among contemporary American composers as an out trans woman who is in great demand as a composer. She has had commissions from choruses all over the country including the Seattle Men's and Women's Choruses and The Esoterics.
P&P: Because here in this newsletter we’re all about practicing, I have to ask: what has your experience of PRACTICING this music been like? Are there any noteworthy connections or insights that have come up as you’ve gotten to know this repertoire?
BS: One of the challenges of learning repertoire outside the established canon is that there are so few resources. If I want to learn a new suite by Johann Sebastian Bach I can find various scholarly editions of the piece, books and articles about it, and dozens if not hundreds of recordings by many of the greatest artists of the past century. Also I've been hearing the piece and/or pieces like it throughout my life on the radio, in movie soundtracks and TV commercials, in student recitals, etc. When I go to learn a new suite by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre I might be faced with a sloppy edition or an original print (which may also be sloppy) and there may or may not be any particularly inspiring recordings of it. I have to decide for myself how to interpret what I find on the page to bring out the best qualities in the music. And I feel an extra responsibility: if I give an unconvincing performance people will likely assume it wasn't a very good piece to begin with (which would not be the case with music by J.S. Bach).
P&P: What would you say to amateur musicians who are looking for fresh, interesting & inspiring material to work on?
BS: Be curious! Explore! There is so much available now. Most of the music by women which we are featuring on BS&F programs can be found on imslp.org. You may have to read from a copy of a print from hundreds of years ago but that can be really fun and exciting -- it's a great way to get more deeply into into the mindset of people from past times and places.
For starters, I think every student of "classical" piano should get to know these three 19th-century composers: Maria Szymanowska, Luise Adolpha Le Beau, and Francisca "Chiquinha" Gonzaga. All three had extraordinary careers! Check out their biographies on Wikipedia and their music on imslp.org. Szymanowska would be a good prerequisite to playing the music of Frederic Chopin. Anyone who could play Robert Schumann's Scenes from Childhood could play Le Beau's opus 8 Preludes (and then move on to her more difficult works). And Gonzaga's music might go along with Scott Joplin's as examples of composers bringing American vernacular musics (South and North American respectively) into the piano repertoire.
P&P: What else would you like to tell us?
BS: Our online concerts are all available for free on the Byron Schenkman & Friends YouTube channel. You can watch them any time. That said, if you join us for the premieres you can participate in the live chat with the performers and also join a post-concert Q&A on zoom after the premiere. I look forward to meeting you there!
There you have it, dear readers! If you join the post-concert Q&A on Zoom, be sure to tell Byron you read about it here! NB: future interviews in P&P (they’ll show up from time to time) will be limited to paid subscribers—but I wanted to offer this one up to all readers, to let you know about this special performance. If you’d like to receive future interviews in your inbox, please consider a subscription, which will also unlock access to all the Pride & Practicing featured practice tools….
And with our inaugural interview, below you’ll find one more added bonus! Byron has graciously offered up this information about all the women composers whose music is being presented on the BS&F series this spring (some live, some online). Have fun and be inspired!
Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590) published three books of madrigals in Venice. Some of her work was also included in an anthology of madrigals published in Florence in 1566. Some of her music was dedicated to Isabella de’ Medici.
Fracncesca Caccini (1587-1640) published a collection of vocal music as well as an opera, La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina, first performed in Florence in 1625 and subsequently in Warsaw in 1628: the first opera performed outside of Italy. She was the highest-paid musician at the Medici court.
Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) presided over her own private concert series and published eight volumes of music in her native Venice, including more secular vocal music than any other contemporary composer (of any gender).
Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) was an Ursuline nun who published hundreds of works including twelve instrumental sonatas in addition to motets, masses, and psalm settings for various combinations of voices and instruments.
Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) was brought to the court of Louis XIV as a child prodigy and became a favorite composer of the king. She published two books of harpsichord suites, six violin sonatas, three books of cantatas, and an opera.
Anna Bon (1738-after 1769) was trained at the famous Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, worked as a singer at the Bavarian Court in Bayreuth, and published three volumes of music consisting of six flute sonatas, six harpsichord sonatas, and six trios, while still in her teens.
Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) was a virtuoso pianist who toured Europe performing recitals from memory (before that was common practice). It is interesting to note that she wrote piano pieces in many of the forms later used by Frédéric Chopin: preludes, etudes, waltzes, polonaises, nocturnes.
Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was one of the most famous pianists and one of the most influential European musicians of the nineteenth century. Her published work includes a piano concerto, a trio, romances for violin and piano, many solo piano works, and songs.
Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga (1847-1935) was a mixed-race Brazilian pianist, conductor, and composer of piano pieces, songs, and light opera.
Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927) published dozens of works including large-scale orchestral and choral works, two operas, chamber music, songs, and piano solos. She also published an autobiography of “the life of a woman composer.” Clara Schumann was one of her teachers.
Teresa Carreño (1853-1917) was a world-famous concert pianist. She performed at the White House for both Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. Amy Beach and Edward MacDowell dedicated piano concertos to her. Most of her own published work is for piano solo.
Marie Elisabeth von Saxe-Meiningen (1853-1923) was a princess and student of Johannes Brahms. Her Romance in F for clarinet and piano was performed by Brahms and the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld on the same concert at which Brahms’s E-flat Clarinet Sonata was premiered.
Florence Beatrice Price (1887-1953) composed four symphonies, four concertos, other large-scale choral and orchestral works, and a lot of chamber music, piano works and songs. Her first symphony was the first work by a Black woman performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1933. Her first and third symphonies were recently recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon.
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) was a student and friend of Florence Price as well as a close associate of the poet Langston Hughes, many of whose works she set to music. Her Credo for chorus and orchestra was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1972.
Mari Esabel Valverde (b. 1987) is an award-winning composer based in North Texas. She is best known for her choral works, including commissions for the American Choral Directors Association, Seattle Men’s and Women’s Choruses, and Boston Choral Ensemble.