Unconvincing Survey of Female Piano Composers

from the Amazon.com Web page for this recording

This Friday Sorel Classics will release its latest album, Donna Voce. Ukrainian-born pianist Anna Shelest prepared a program of works for solo piano by female composers from the nineteenth century to the recent past. Shelest now lives in New York City, having earned her Masters degree from the Juilliard School through studies with Jerome Lowenthal. As usual, Amazon.com has prepared a Web page for processing pre-orders for those who can’t wait.

The plan for this album raises some questions, none of which are adequately addressed through either Shelest’s performances or the accompanying booklet. Most important is the matter of the extent to which any of these compositions bear a relationship to what male composers were doing at that time that is worth considering. For example, the historical record affirms that Fanny Mendelssohn often collaborated with her younger brother Felix to the extent that some of her own work was published under his name. The list of her compositions runs to 466 entries, approximately 50 of which were published, half a dozen under her brother’s name.

The opening selection on the album is a sonata in G minor that Fanny composed in 1843, over a decade after her marriage to the painter Wilhelm Hensel. The brevity of its four movements suggests that Fanny had liberated herself from her brother’s tendency to be more long-winded. Sadly, the accompanying booklet offers only a brief, and not particularly representative, biographical summary that says nothing about the music itself. The same is true about most of the other composers included on this album. In order of appearance after Fanny’s beginning selection, they are Amy Beach, Clara Schumann, Cecile Chaminade, and Lili Boulanger. Only the notes for the final composer on the album, Chiayu Hsu (who, on her own Web site, now seems to go only by the name Chiayu), include any remarks about her contribution, “Rhapsody Toccata.”

The advance material I received with this recording included the following sentence:

The program [of the album] sheds light on the under-explored territory of piano repertoire and makes the case that the music of female composers, many of whom were virtuoso pianists, is as relevant today as the music of their male counterparts.

The CD does nothing of the sort. The inadequacy of the booklet content is such that the curious reader will be obliged to do his/her own research to enhance the listening experience. Whether or not that research will then make the case for relevance is anybody’s guess, but at least that reader will feel justified in drawing his/her own conclusions.