Grand Piano’s Female Composer Releases

from the Amazon.com Web page for the collection being discussed

The Grand Piano label is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary with a series of limited-edition box sets, each reflecting a particular “theme” from the overall catalog. At the beginning of last month, the first of those box sets was released, a ten-CD collection entitled Three Centuries of Female Composers. The first nine CDs provided surveys of the music of seven composers as follows:

1. Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy (1744–1824), The Piano Sonatas Rediscovered
2. Hélène Antoinette Marie de Nervo de Montgeroult (1764–1836), Complete Piano Sonatas
3. Maria Szymanowska (1789–1831), Complete Dances for Solo Piano
4. Agathe Backer Grøndahl (1847–1907), Piano Works
5. Teresa Carreño (1853–1917), Rêverie – Selected Music for Piano
6. Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940), Complete Piano Music
7. Tanya Ekanayaka (born 1977), The Planets & Humanity – Piano Reflections

The Brillon de Jouy and Montgeroult albums both consist of two CDs, thus accounting for all but one of the CDs in the box. The final CD is a “recital album” performed by pianist Hiroko Ishimoto accounting for fourteen composers, only a few of whom are represented in the first seven albums.

Followers of this cite are probably aware of other recording projects, which involve sampling female composers by allotting each one of them a single track on a single CD. The most comprehensive of these projects is probably Sarah Cahill’s, entitled The Future is Female. In writing about the first of her planned three releases, I suggested that the content was more amenable to “digital listening,” in which one can focus on individual tracks rather than, as I put it, “ just playing the entire album from beginning to end.” The Grand Piano releases, on the other hand, can be treated as “virtual recitals,” each one offering a “journey” through a single composer’s repertoire. In such “recital mode” listening, one can cultivate an appreciation for both any overall stylistic orientation and any diversity that distinguishes individual compositions.

Listening to Three Centuries thus involves commitment to a time-consuming undertaking, but the time need not be consumed in a single listening experience. Indeed, the very idea of “consuming time” would probably undermine the experience. The last thing a listener should do is listen to one album while beginning to think about “what comes next.” First one should listen for the “terrain” of each individual composer. As one comes to know the different “territories,” one can then begin to think about their respective differences and similarities.

In that respect I am obliged to confess that my own listening experiences are just beginning. Those reading my recent Cahill article may recognize Carreño and Kaprálová as familiar names. In my case familiarity with Carreño was greater due to her connection with Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Nevertheless, she had her own distinctive voice; and getting to know her particular “terrain” was definitely one of my earlier satisfying experiences with this Grand Piano anthology. Where my future listening encounters will lead is anybody’s guess!