Author: welland2

Evening devoted to female composers

Catherine Wilmers’ fascinating presentation

March 2026

Female composers get a raw deal and few of their compositions get an airing in a musical world which until recently was very male dominated and to an extent, is still so. The Society was delighted to welcome Catherine Wilmers to give a presentation of a selection of such works and not only that, but works for the cello. She brought a cello along with her and played two of the pieces in a live performance.

Catherine (pictured) has a distinguished history having studied at the Royal Academy of Music and subsequently in Vienna. For a quarter of a century she played for the London Philharmonic Orchestra only the second woman to do so in the cello section. She has made many recordings.

Such was the prejudice against women composers that many published using only initials instead of their full name. This actually makes it harder for subsequent generations since finding out if ‘A’ Smith for example is Alexander Smith or Alexandra Smith is difficult. Detective work is often needed therefore.

Fanny Mendelssohn is well known but some of her works were published under her husband’s name. Is that plagiarism I wonder? Since a husband at that time owned his wife’s property then probably not – I digress. We heard her Fantasy in G minor written when she was 24 a quite brilliant work. Despite being a brilliant player she was not allowed to perform.

Some women did make it into the public realm one being Susan Spain-Dunk who conducted at the Proms at the time of Henry Wood only the second woman to do so.

Another interesting vignette of history was May Muckle who was the first to play the cello not ‘side-saddle’ no doubt because it was considered ‘unseemly’ to do so. We heard her Hamadryad.

The conductor Hans von Bülow was another man of that era who opposed female emancipation saying ‘women’s emancipation is hateful to me’. He did do a lot however, to promote the careers of composers like Brahms and Wagner. At that time was another famous female composer Dame Ethyl Smyth who was imprisoned for her campaigning for suffrage and was a friend of Emmeline Pankhurst . We heard an extract from her Sonata in A minor.

Altogether we listened to 14 pieces* from a range of women some of whom are sadly almost forgotten. We were extremely grateful for her presentation, the live performance of two pieces and the range of background material and anecdotes she had been able to find out about many of women she highlighted.

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting in 3 weeks on 13 April and is on black musicians in the period 1500 – 1800.

*I can scan the full list for anyone who would like it.

Next meeting

An evening focusing on women composers

March 2026

We are delighted to welcome the ‘cellist Catherine Wilmers to the next meeting on Monday 23 March starting at 7:30 as usual. Catherine is a professional musician and played for many years with the LPO. You can read about her on her extensive website which will also give you a flavour of the evening’s presentation.

She will focus on female composers who all too rarely appear on programmes

and in performances. It seems that Dr Johnson’s disparaging comment is still true when told about a woman preaching at a Quaker event: ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog walking in his hind legs. It is not done well but one is surprised to see it done at all’ (Boswell).

She will focus on works for the ‘cello and piano by women composers. No doubt she will show it can be done well.

Free if it is your first visit then £5 if you come again. The next meeting is on 13 April. We are at the rear of St Ann St in the Guides Centre with free parking. Access from Carmalite Way. We finish at 9:30.

PC

Photograph from her website.

Tonight’s meeting

March 2026

Tonight’s meeting will be on Monday 9th March at 7.30 when Peter Curbishley will be presenting “My Musical Journey – Half a century of listening””

At the following meeting on Monday 23rd March we will welcome Catherine Wilmers who will present “Works for ‘cello and piano by British women composers”

At our previous members’ evening several members expressed interest in having a copy of the play list, and of the final two YouTubes.  If you would like me to send these to you, please would you respond ‘Yes please’, to this email.

We hope to welcome you to one or both of these evenings.

Next meeting

CANCELLED

We regret to announce that we are cancelling tonight’s meeting because of the forecast bad weather.

February 2026

The next meeting takes place on Monday 9 February starting at 7:30 as usual and aims to finish at 9:30 with a break in the middle. It will be presentation by two of our members on the French composer, Eric Satie. Born in Honfleur in 1866 he had a French father and English mother. He went to the Conservatoire and left without qualifying spending much of his early life playing in Paris cafes.

He is famous for a narrow range of compositions but, as a member of Les Six he was influential particularly with Ravel, Debussy and Poulenc. It will be interesting to hear a range of his pieces in a concentrated programme.

Non members are welcome and the first visit is free and £5 thereafter. Parking is on the doorstep and there is reasonable access for people with limited mobility. Satnav SP1 2HB.

Full programme.

PC

With few strings attached

First meeting of the second half

January 2026

In these days of jet travel, the internet and international transport, we can forget that in times past, people lived very local lives, often their village and the local market town was the limit of their universe. Many had never heard a symphony orchestra or went to the opera. Their music would have been travelling players in the local church (village and church halls were a rarity) and if they had access to ‘classical’ music at all, it might be a piano transcription of a symphony or other piece.

The middle classes might have an invitation to the ‘big house’ to hear a small ensemble of some kind. It is this world that Ed Tinline illustrated with his presentation featuring wind ensembles. As ever, there were pieces by composers long forgotten who might have been quite famous in their day.

Wind ensembles trace their roots to military bands in the seventeenth and earlier times and came to the fore in the French Revolution. One of the problems for composers was the lack of standardisation of the instruments which meant writing ensemble pieces difficult. Some pieces were composed to fit the players who were available not the other way round.

The twentieth century saw the form come of age so to speak and major composers start to write pieces specifically for these groups.

We started with a piece by a composer you are likely to have heard of, one WA Mozart and his 1781 Serenade, followed by someone who has almost been forgotten, Franz Tausch (1762 – 1817) and his Wind Quartet op 22. Pieces by Antoine Reicha and Franz Krommer followed. Reicha taught at the Conservatoire and pupils included Liszt and Berlioz but he fell into obscurity after his death.

We moved into later periods with music by Gabriel Pierné and Paul Taffanel who both lived into the twentieth century.

The second half had contributions from Carl Nielson and his Wind Quintet and Leoš Janáček. Someone less well known is John Fernström with his 1943 Wind Quintet. He is another of those who had a significant output of works but who has largely disappeared. Born in China, most of his life was spent in Sweden where he was an orchestral player and conductor.

After a Wind Quintet by Eugène Bozza (1905 – 1991) we listened to an unusual piece for 4 saxophones by Philip Glass. Finally, and cheating a bit (there’s a piano!), was the Quintet in B♭ by Rimsky-Korsakov.

An interesting programme with a variety of forgotten compositions interspersed with works by established composers.

Our next meeting features the work of the eccentric Frenchman Eric Satie on 9 February.

PC

Second half restarts Monday

Second half of the season starts 26th January

January 2026

Our first meeting in 2026 will be on Monday 26th January at 7.30 when Ed Tinline will be presenting “With few strings attached” – a programme of music for wind ensemble.

At the following meeting on 9th February 2026, Tim Rowe and Alan Doel will be presenting “Erik Satie – Gymnopediste!”

Look forward to seeing you there. For non-members it is £5 but the first visit is free. Happy New Year to you all.

PC

Previous posts:

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Classical themes to TV and radio programmes

December 2025

You cannot say we do not ring the changes with our presentations: the final meeting of the autumn season was no exception.  Called ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ David Davies played a range of theme tunes to favourite TV and radio programmes.

Most were familiar although trying to match the music to the programme was not always easy especially those which are no longer broadcast.  Fauré for example provided the music to ‘Listen with Mother’ (and the title for the presentation) and the programme lasted from 1950 to 1982.

William Walton provided the theme for Cat & Dog and another English composer, Elgar’s Chanson de Matin for Norman and Henry Bones which ran for around 20 years on Children’s Hour and starred Charles Hawtry.

Bach was featured on another popular radio classic ‘Animal, Vegetable or Mineral’ on the radio. Surprisingly, it didn’t run for that long, only 7 years, but one of its starts was Mortimer Wheeler who did a lot to bring archaeology into the limelight.

Many may remember ‘Top of the Form’ which ran for many years. Initially, only between boys’ schools but girls came later. Sign of the times eh. Several themes were used including one by Debussy.

An extremely memorable theme, played on trumpets, is that for the Open University which introduced many lectures in the early years. Few might know it was composed by Leonard Salzedo who despite his name is another English composer albeit of Spanish descent. For those of us who were OU students at that time, it is an extremely evocative and a reminder of watching a lecture on physics say at 1 o’clock in the morning. A reminder.

Other extremely popular and familiar themes include those for the Eurovision Song Contest – in the news recently concerning Israel’s entry into the contest. Few will be able to name the composer who is in fact Charpentier and it is an extract from one of his settings of Te Deum.

Mozart provided the theme for the Horse of the Year Show another long-running favourite starting in 1949 no less. Talking of sport, ‘Nessum Dorma’ was much in evidence in the 1990 World Cup of course.

Most programmes seem to use existing music but from time to time new works are commissioned. An example is the music for Pride and Prejudice.  Howard Goodall was mentioned who has a long range of credit to his name including ‘Mr Bean’ and ‘Not the Nine O’clock News’. 

It is noteworthy that many themes were composed by established classical composers and it is difficult to think of much popular music used in this way.  Sopranos is an exception as are some of the themes to Scandi Noir series like ‘The Bridge’.

It is almost certainly true to say that many people’s first experience of classical music is through theme tunes. Producers have gone to some trouble to select something that matches the drama and which is memorable to the viewers. Unfortunately, if you want to know who the composer was, the credits often will not mention the actual composer but whoever it was who arranged it or added incidental music. The music for ‘Tom and Jerry’ cat and mouse capers for example were heavily influenced by Bartok and Schoenberg but their names never appeared on the credits, rather Scott Bradley.

An entertaining evening and the last of the first half of our programme.  We resume on 26 January 2026.

Peter Curbishley

Next meeting

Last meeting before Christmas

November 2025

TONIGHT

Our final meeting in 2025 will be on 1st December when David Davies will be asking “Are you sitting comfortably?” and presenting some Classical Music Signature Tunes. 

In the new year we will resume on Monday 26th January 2026 when Ed Tinline will present: “With few strings attached”,  music for wind ensembles.

We hope you will be able to join us on Monday.

With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

Tonight’s meeting

November 2025

Tonight’s programme (Monday, 17th) features the work of Gordon Jacob another of those composers who despite a prolific output, largely remains in the shadows. He composed over 900 works and was a significant figure in the music world.

Presented by Geoff Orgram, it starts at 7:30 as usual. If you have never been before and want to give it a try, then your visit will be free. You can see details of our other evenings on this site.

Members’ evening

November 2025

Members’ evenings always bring surprises. It is an opportunity for them to bring for the delectation of others, something that appeals to them or they have discovered recently. They are always eclectic and never with any kind of theme unlike say, a concert where the organisers try to focus on a composer say. Which sort of makes such evenings a strength because no one of knows what the others are going to bring. It is if you will, a kind of musical tapas the only difference being it’s all brought to you and you don’t have to chose.

But enough, what did we hear you ask? We started with Brahm’s second cello sonata in F, a kind of introduction to the evening. Following was a surprise and that was a quartet for saxophones by Jean Francaix (in French) where you will read he had an illustrious career and was encouraged by Ravel. The saxophone does not get much of an airing in classical music – a pity for such versatile family of instruments.

Well, we then had an addition to our evenings in the form of a DVD and a recording of Begin the Beguine performed by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. This Cole Porter song did not get much attention until Artie Shaw recorded a few years later on the B side of a record whereupon it shot to fame and was a huge success for him. Shaw met Porter and words were exchanged apparently because Porter rather resented his success with the number. The film performance was great to see with amazing dancing to go with the music.

We were introduced to the music of Lassana Diabaté a musician from Guinea in Africa in a performance of Sunjata’s Time for string quartet, a quite unusual piece.

Something more traditional but meaningful for the presenter was the third movement from Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major K 370. The concerto (for that effectively what it is) is significant as one of his first major works having left Salzburg in 1781 and started to make his mark in Vienna.

Next was a leap to the American composer Philip Glass and the third movement of his Violin Concerto composed in 1987 and is typical of this composer with its repeated themes and modulation.

Film music doesn’t always get the attention it deserves with three examples from the Italian Job, Once Upon the Time in the West and Where Eagles Dare. It is a creation of the twentieth century with the invention of the cinema and eventually the ‘talkies. Composers have to match the music to the action although in some cases the film is edited around the music.

A wonderful film of a Chaconne from Partita No 2 BWV 1004 followed performed by Nathan Milstein. Although of some vintage, it was outstanding and a reminder of his greatness as a performer. We remarked on how young the audience was when the camera panned back. Would such a performance today attract such an audience …?

We finished with extracts from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s best know work Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Born in London of West African descent he was nicknamed the ‘African Mahler’ in America but has nowadays largely disappeared. He died young aged 37 and was encouraged in his brief career by Elgar among others.

An enjoyable and informative evening. Eclectic or what?

Next meeting on Monday 17 November.