by Jarrett Hoffman
TODAY’S ALMANAC: LESSER-KNOWN WOMEN COMPOSERS
Inspired by this past weekend’s performances by the Pantheon Ensemble as part of CityMusic Cleveland’s “Celebrating Women’s Rights to Vote and Create” series, let’s feature two women composers who aren’t very well known (at least in the U.S. in one case), and who were born on this date in history: Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723) and Aleksandra Pakhmutova (1929).
The youngest sister of Frederick II, and eventually the Abbess of Quedlinburg, Anna Amalia was only able to fully delve into musical studies after the death of her father, Frederick I, who was known to be abusive and to find music frivolous. A multi-instrumentalist, Amalia was also a composer, patron, and collector, having preserved some 600 volumes of music by J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and others. Not many of her own works survive — some suggest she destroyed them, as she was known to be self-critical — though her catalog includes cantatas, chorales, chamber music, and marches.
Among her most well-known pieces is the Flute Sonata in F, which you can hear on YouTube in a 2019 live performance in Montreal by members of Infusion Baroque on historical instruments. You can also learn more about Amalia from Episode 1 of that ensemble’s Virtuosa Series.
Jumping forward a couple hundred years, we get to a living composer: Aleksandra Pakhmutova, who is popular in Russia and has received many awards from the state. Her success spans many genres, including orchestral music, ballet, film music, and popular music. And here’s an unexpected (and admittedly minor) Ohio connection: there’s an asteroid bearing her name — it’s been known as “1889 Pakhmutova” since an “official naming citation” was filed in 1976 by the Minor Planet Center, based at the time in Cincinnati.
Before coming back down to earth, let’s spotlight her well-known Trumpet Concerto, which opens with beautifully celestial music — listen here in a performance by the Eastman Graduate Conducting Orchestra, with Samuel Huss as soloist and Peter J. Folliard conducting. And among her library of 400 songs is Good-Bye Moscow, which fittingly served as the farewell tune of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
Other anniversaries to mark today: the death of composer Carl Philipp Stamitz (1801) and the birth of baritone Bryn Terfel (1965).
And if you missed those CityMusic performances from this past weekend, which featured music by Luise Adolpha Le Beau and Camille Saint-Saëns, the Sunday live stream is still available on YouTube. I also recommend taking a look at the program booklet, where page three is a handy and informative survey of the history of women composers in classical music.