Ladies of the six strings: Women’s Guitar Music Perspectives in the 20th Century

Description

This project was born with the intention of shed light on female composers and their compositions that I consider essential to the guitar repertoire.
A decisive role in this mission was that of my teacher, Maria Vittoria Jedlowski, who has pushed me to delve deeper into the research of past and present female composers with her contagious passion and energy.
This recording includes music by four composers with rather different styles, that I decided to combine together embracing each composer’s unique personality: Annette Kruisbrink, Fernande Peyrot, Betty Roe and Beatrice Campodonico.
With two of them, I have had the privilege and pleasure to collaborate closely in the process of studying, performing and recording their works: Annette Kruisbrink and Beatrice Campodonico.

Annette Kruisbrink (born 1958, The Netherlands) studied the guitar with Pieter van der Staak at the Conservatory of Zwolle. She attended masterclasses conducted by Leo Brouwer, John Mills, Toyohiko Satoh and many others. She then taught herself to play the flamenco guitar and the vihuela. She studied composition with Alex Manassen and attended composition classes run by a.o. Nigel Osborne and Claudio Prieto. She composed over 400 compositions published by international publishing houses in a.o. The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Canada and the U.S. of America. She has won international prizes and awards for her compositions. Annette Kruisbrink has given recitals and masterclasses guitar/ composition all over the world. She is frequently invited as a member of the panel for international guitar and composition competitions. Annette is both Director and Professor at the “Anido Guitar School”. From 2000-2010 she taught contemporary music and ethno music at the Conservatory of Music in Zwolle, Holland. With the Belgian guitarist Arlette Ruelens she forms “The Anido Guitarduo”. With the Dutch soprano Franka van Essen she forms the duo “Kruisbrink & Van Essen”. With Maria Vittoria Jedlowski and Arlette Ruelens she is a member of the international “Trio Trobairitz”. She plays also in the “Ensemble Muzinder”. Annette is the producer of 24 CDs with her compositions.
“Homenaje a Andrés Segovia” was commissioned by “Stichting Gitaarweken” Zwolle in 1993, 100 years after the birth of the famous Andrés Segovia. With this composition, Kruisbrink was awarded the 1st prize in a competition for composition in Fort de France, Martinique. It consists of four movements that express memories of Segovia through different moods: “Encuentro” (encounter) expresses the composer’s awe of having met Segovia; the “Scherzo” represents his humour and his cheerful side; “Llanto” (weeping) expresses the sadness of his death and “Recuerdo” (remembrance) the musical richness he has bequeathed to us.

Fernande Peyrot (1888-1978) born in Geneva and studied at the Conservatory of her city with Ernst Bloch and Emile Jacques-Dalcroze. In 1916 she obtained the diploma of the “Institute Jacques-Dalcroze”. In 1919 she moved to Paris where she studied with André Géralge and Paul Dukas at the Conservatory. She taught both at the “Ecole de rythmique du Vaugirard” and at the “Ecole normale de musique”. After coming back to Geneva, she pursued both a compositional and teaching career and directed a small choir for many years. Fernande Peyrot’s cathalog consists of choral, chamber and orchestral compositions. She began composing for guitar when, together with Frank Martin and other composers, was inspired by Andrés Segovia who lived for a few years in Geneva where he performed in concerts. In May 2001, among the various pieces of the Andrés Segovia Foundation of Linares, the manuscript of the “4 Preludes” was found, one of which was dedicated to Segovia. The only copy of the manuscript of the “Theme and Variations” is the one that Peyrot gave to Segovia who, despite never having performed it kept it in his archive. The characteristics of her guitar pieces are the harmonic and contrapuntal precision, the breaking of the traditional rhythmic canon and the very lively contrasts, from fiery to sweet singing.

Betty Roe was born in 1930 in London. She studied piano and cello at the “Royal Academy of Music”. She then went on studying composition with Lennox Berkeley. She is active in many aspects of music- as a singer, pianist, coach, examiner and music director. As a composer, her works embraces many genres: solo songs, church and choral music, revue songs, musicals, opera, instrumental pieces and schools music. Betty Roe first noticed the guitar in what she calls the Julian Bream era. “I love the delicacy of the sound of it. I don’t like loud noises and big noise orchestras, they overwhelm me and frighten me. I do like jazz, but not too loud. The guitar’s was a sound I seemed to understand”. Like most non-guitarist composers, she first wrote for the instrument when a guitarist asked her to. “I write music with my ears, I really think the quality of the sound of the guitar, and reproduce from my ears what I can hear it play, its agility and texture and so forth. In that way, it is quite easy for a composer to write for the guitar”. She wrote several pieces for guitar and she collaborated with guitarists like Gerald Garcia, Ian Gammie and John Mills. “Short Sonata” was commissioned by the “Zwolle Internationale Gitaarweken” in 1977.

Beatrice Campodonico was born in Milan in 1958 and graduated in composition and choral singing with Vittorio Fellegara, later perfecting herself with Mino Bordignon for choral conducting, with Boris Porena, Ada Gentile and Franco Donatoni for composition and Angelo Paccagnini for electronic music. Alongside her work as a composer, she also works as a choir director, as a promoter of contemporary music and as a teacher, currently at the Milan Conservatory. Beatrice Campodonico’s style is located in that frontier land that seeks to reconcile communication with the audience and the most advanced compositional research: this balance is happily achieved in “La Leggenda di Vassilissa” (ed. Rugginenti), written in 1998 and dedicated to Maria Vittoria Jedlowski who oversaw the revision. This is the second work for solo guitar, after the “Three short pieces” and was born from the collaboration and friendship with Maria Vittoria Jedlowski who suggested adapting the fairy tale of Vassilissa to music for a guitar and dance project. The piece, divided into five scenes and an intermezzo, is inspired by the Russian fairy tale of the same name which sees Vassilissa as the protagonist, a poor orphan represented by a theme harmonized in fourths, forced by her wicked stepsisters and her stepmother to face the terrible witch Baba Yaga, with the false pretext of searching for a house fire. Vassilissa will return home triumphant, after having experienced frightening situations, always guided by the feminine intuition inherited from her sweet mother. Characteristics of this work are the richness of the timbral palette and the series of chordal successions that the composer uses to develop complex and variously articulated rhythmic cells. Complexity and rhythmic irregularity are chosen as a vehicle for feelings of restlessness, anxiety and fear. Only the last song “The triumph of Vassilissa” is linear and soft, underlining a particular way of experiencing victory: in fact, one does not always shout with joy once a goal has been reached or a difficulty has been overcome; most of the time a sweet and melancholic tiredness absorbs the body and the mind. “La Leggenda di Vassilissa” was awarded a diploma of merit at the III “Paolo Barsacchi” international guitar composition competition.
I decided to adapt the text of the fairy tale in order to play it while performing the piece.
Emma Baiguera © 2023