Wednesday, January 10, 2018

The March of the Women

The kind and dedicated people who volunteer their time to organize and maintain the IMSLP have created a category for women composers.

It is going to take a long time to look at the work of all the 444 (so far) composers on this list, so I am starting with composers I know. Yesterday I found a delightful Humoresque, by Ethel Barns. I went next to the listing for Barns's contemporary compatriot Ethel Smyth (who has a cello sonata that might be fun to transcribe for viola).

I was very happy to find the piece Smyth wrote in 1910 that became the anthem for the Suffrage movement, "The March of the Women." It happens to work beautifully as a solo viola piece.


You can read about The March of the Women here, and listen to a rollicking heartfelt performance (with an excellent array of images) here.

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