By Molly Gebrian: Today is International Women's Day, and so I wanted to take an opportunity to describe why my new album - called Trailblazers - means so much to me. When I heard the three sonatas on this album, my initial reaction was, "Wow, these pieces are absolutely amazing - I definitely want to play them!" And also - "I hope they work on the viola..."
My second reaction was, "Why in the world have I never heard these pieces before? And why have I never even heard of the women who wrote them?" I was actually angry. These women were fascinating - they lead such interesting, remarkable lives, and yet I had never heard of them. I'm a highly educated classical musician, and I didn't even know their names!
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L-R: Composers Henriëtte Bosmans, Ethel Smyth, and Dora Pejacevic.
It just wasn't right. These women poured their heart and souls into their music, into their creative output. They absolutely deserve recognition for that today. So this album is part of my mission to rectify that situation, at least a little bit.
With that in mind, I'd like to tell you about these composers, and about the works that I performed with pianist Danny Holt on this album, a project that is very near and dear to my heart.
The album features three cello sonatas by Henriëtte Bosmans, Ethel Smyth, and Dora Pejacevic, in my own transcriptions for viola. These are all outstanding pieces, deserving of a place in our standard repertoire. The three women who wrote them were all extraordinary individuals who defied the social expectations of their time to live unapologetically as themselves. They all led fascinating lives, and each left behind a rich body of work that merits further exploration.
Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952) was Dutch and lived her life in Amsterdam. She was in high demand as a solo pianist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in the 1930s and early 1940s, particularly after May 1940 when many pianists either couldnt or wouldnt travel to Nazi-occupied Holland to perform. Bosmans herself was half-Jewish (her mother was Jewish, her father was Roman Catholic) and so was herself unable to perform after 1942. She supported herself by playing in underground house concerts, which were quite dangerous; she reportedly had to flee to avoid capture when one was raided. In addition to being half-Jewish, she was also openly bisexual and had serious, long-lasting relationships with both men and women during her life. Her partner in the 1920s, Dutch resistance fighter and cellist Frieda Belinfante, was the inspiration for many of the cello works she wrote during this period.
Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) was English and is perhaps the most well-known composer on the album, having enjoyed renewed interest in her work in recent years. Like the other composers on this album, she knew who she was and what she wanted. As a 17-year-old, she reportedly locked herself in her room and refused to come out until her father would agree to let her study composition. As a result of winning this stand-off, she went to Leipzig to study, only to be disappointed by the quality of teaching she received there. During that time, she met many prominent composers, including Brahms, Dvorak, Clara Schumann, and Tchaikovsky. Soon after her return to England in 1890, she wrote six operas, all of which were well-received and were performed in Europe and North America. She also became a prominent member of the English womens suffrage movement between 1911 and 1913, and wrote the piece of music that was adopted as their official anthem. She lived a multi-faced life, which including mountaineering, bicycling, prose writing, and working as an assistant radiologist during World War I. Like Bosmans, she was also openly bisexual and maintained a long-term, long-distance relationship with Henry Brewster while also have many intense, passionate affairs with women (with Henrys knowledge and support).
Dora Pejacevic (1885-1923) was Croatian and largely self-taught as a composer. She was born into an upper-class family: her father was a count from one of Croatias oldest families and her mother was a Hungarian baroness. Despite her lack of formal training in composition, Pejacevic wrote the first modern Croatian symphony as well as the first piano concerto by a Croatian composer. Both works are outstanding and are well worth taking the time to listen to. She was also an avid reader in several languages and very interested in politics. Despite her social class, she had nothing but contempt for the aristocracy, writing disdainfully about them in letters to a friend. She was especially disgusted by the fact that members of the aristocracy did not work, and she herself worked as a volunteer nurse during World War I. When she died tragically at the age of 38, four weeks after giving birth to her son, she refused to be buried in the family crypt and asked for donations to be made in her memory to the families of impoverished musicians.
When it came to transcribing these three works for viola, the process was different for each sonata. The Smyth sonata largely works as written, an octave above the cello register. The only sections I am playing in the original cello octave are the lyrical melodies in the second movement. In the cello original, they are in a higher register on the A string and although they work up there on the viola, playing them an octave down on the D and G strings helps preserve the warmth of the cello version. In a few sections where the cello would be playing on the C string, we chose to subtly reinforce the viola an octave lower in the piano because the music lacked the richness that the deeper register can provide. Other than that, the piano part remains unchanged.
The Pejacevic and the Bosmans were more difficult to transcribe because both sonatas have many extended passages very high up on the A string. This register sounds amazing on the cello intense, passionate, and triumphant. On the viola, it sounds a bit hysterical, not to mention thin and cumbersome. In putting many of these passages down the octave (so they sound in the original cello register), I had to make many careful decisions of where to break the line to go down the octave. I wanted to preserve the character and trajectory of the original without sacrificing sound and playability for the violist. Having done this work, I now think the Pejacevic, in particular, works better on the viola. This sonata is warm and lyrical as a whole with many beautiful singing melodies, and putting many of these tunes on the warmer G and D strings works much better, I think, than very high up on the A string for extended periods of time as it is in the cello version.
One of the biggest issues I had to solve in these sonatas was how to handle pizzicato. Often the composers wrote big, forte pizzicato chords for the cello, which sound resonant and powerful. These same chords on the viola often sound weak and even silly. In some instances, I elected to play these chords arco to give them the power the composer clearly intended. In others, I re-voiced the chords to utilize more open strings to make them more resonant. In one section in the final movement of the Pejacevic, however, I could not find a solution that worked. We finally decided to switch the viola and cello parts, so I am now playing the melody that was originally in the right hand of the piano, and the pizzicato chords have been transferred to the left hand of the piano. It has become one of my favorite sections to play, so Im glad we were able to find this creative solution.
The album is out now and available here and on all streaming platforms. In celebration of Womens History Month, 25 percent of all sales of physical CDs will be donated to the Boulanger Initiative, which supports the work of women composers. The physical CD comes with detailed liner notes, written by myself, that delve further into the lives of these three incredible women, so we hope you will consider purchasing a copy and supporting the work of the Boulanger Initiative. Use promo code RIGHTS when placing your order here. You might also like:
L-R: Composers Henriëtte Bosmans, Ethel Smyth, and Dora Pejacevic.
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