New York Premiere
22 minutes. Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 1 trumpet, timpani, percussion, strings, and solo oboe.
Ruth Gipps, born into a British musical family, was a prolific composer, accomplished oboist, pianist, conductor, and educator. As a child prodigy on the piano, she won performance competitions against much older contestants and performed her first composition at the age of 8.
As an oboist, married to a clarinetist, and mother of a horn player, Gipps composed with a deep understanding of wind instruments. Her oboe concerto, written in 1941 when she was only 20, is no exception and draws on pastoral themes of Gipps’ surroundings.
A dark and stormy theme opens the piece, with a foreboding ostinato (persistent motif) in conflict with the lyrical solo oboe. Throughout the movement, an uneasy call and response passes throughout the orchestra. The second movement is a wistful dialogue between oboe, clarinet, and solo violin, accompanied by strings. The pastoral third movement begins with the oboe plummeting into a sprightly jig. The energy shifts to a quasi-improvisational oboe interlude accompanied by a drone in the winds reminiscent of a Scottish reel. The oboe closes out the movement with a fiery cadenza and a return to spinning, dancing, and joy.
Gipps’ career encompassed orchestral playing, solo performances, studying, teaching, conducting, and composing until age 33, when an injury forced her to focus mainly on composing and conducting. Her compositions often draw inspiration from Vaughan Williams. Because she rejected the evolving trends in modern music, such as serialism and twelve-tone music, people began to think of her music as old-fashioned. Affected by gender discrimination, she was limited from the performing, recording, and broadcasting of her work during her lifetime.
It took 80 years for her Oboe Concerto to have its American premiere, with the Richmond Symphony in 2021. Her work has begun a revival, which is something she predicted would happen: “I know I am a real composer, perhaps they will only realise it when I am dead.” This afternoon’s performance is the concerto’s New York premiere.
Here is a performance from the Richmond Symphony with Valentina Peleggi & Katherine Needleman, oboe.
Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra
In D minor, Op. 20
Composed in 1941
By Ruth Gipps
