I am looking forward to this ambitious program tomorrow night with the Main Line Symphony Orchestra. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, of course, is a longtime favorite, and somehow the stars have aligned so that I’ll have heard it three times within two months! Quite a harvest, considering Vaughan Williams’ music is so rarely done – beyond the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and “The Lark Ascending” – by American orchestras. In this instance, however, there is an added incentive in the inclusion, to open the concert, of Ruth Gipps’ Symphony No. 2.
Gipps, who lived from 1921 to 1999, was a Vaughan Williams pupil. At 26, she became the youngest English woman ever to receive a doctorate in music. Her mastery of both the oboe and piano suggested a promising future as soloist in virtuoso concert works. However, a shoulder injury, suffered in her early 30s, caused her to shift her focus primarily to composition. Along the way, she also founded two orchestras and directed a choral ensemble.
Despite early success (her tone poem, “Knight in Armour,” was performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 1942), she encountered resistance in a field dominated by men. No doubt this contributed to her steely resolve. She was tenacious. Some found her off-putting.
In all, she left five symphonies, a respectable number of concertos and concertante works, chamber and instrumental music, and choral pieces. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of more Gipps to come, as her works are being revived and recorded. In fact, I have two recordings of this particular symphony, but I never dreamed I would ever hear it in person!
Also on the program will be Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo,” with Yumi Kendall, assistant principal cello of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the soloist. Don Liuzzi, Philly’s longtime principal timpanist, is the Main Line Symphony Orchestra’s music director.
The concert will be presented at Valley Forge Middle School in Wayne, PA, tomorrow night, Friday, at 8 p.m. The program will be repeated at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, Saturday at 1 p.m.
For tickets and information, visit http://www.mlso.org.
