A new 4-CD release (https://citedescompositrices.com/en/album/clemence-de-grandval-eng/) with works by Clémence de Grandval has just been announced by La Boîte à Pépites for 30 October.
Fortunately not all works are miniatures (I don't care for the Stabat mater). They still have a violin sonata and a 30-minute piano trio to compensate for the rest...
The general dearth of substantial ensemble works is a large problem in establishing a practical female performance canon in the present day. There's SO much miniature piano pieces and songs, many of the relatively few larger form works that are there are very short (see for instance Mel Bonis' oeuvre) or they stay emotionally flat - all because a true 19th century lady was expected not to drift into excess of any sort. And yes, there's more to that, and there are exceptions, thankfully.
One of the biggest mistakes I made in a 64-year collecting career was to buy her oboe concerto without pre-listening. I was hoping for another Bellini or Kalliwoda, and ended up with a pale,wan,unsatisfying attempt at a concerto.
Probably predictably, I rather like it; it has an almost pre-impressionist lightness of touch, which makes it a very different beast from the rather muscular Kalliwoda. It most reminded me of Peter Benoît's flute concerto of almost a decade before, but it does feel more modern.
The Bellini isn't really fit for comparison I think; although written in 1823 it's a total anachronism, and at just over seven minutes you can't call it a true concerto.
couldn't have been encouraging that a Frenchwoman* working on a large-scale symphony would know that none of Farrenc's 3 were published - e.g.
(of the time; I'm not referring to e.g. Elsa Barraine (and her two) who was working rather later!)
Edit: that said, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, previously known to me only for her songs, wrote some substantial (if not grand or huge, still not miniature) operas in conjunction with Turgenev - as I've mentioned (I've heard one performed live and enjoyed it quite a bit...) - though also, I believe, unpublished at the time.
I would interject too that -most male composers- also mostly, by far, wrote little piano salon pieces and songs (or liturgical organ and choral works, depending on their emploi) during the era in question- though in their case with more known exceptions, is the point, I guess. (American composers were not especially fortunate here either; published symphonies by 19th century Americans, for instance, start rather late in the century...)
I'd offer as another partial exception among French composers Rita Strohl (1865-1941) (who has been mentioned awhile back) from whom perhaps more should be heard... and am intrigued by the opera composer Pauline Thys (1835-1909) as well. (German woman composers of the 19th century were more fortunate, with Mayer among others having multiple large-scale works published during their lifetimes.)
I have just caught up with Ilja's reply. Of course,the Bellini is more of a concertino than a concerto, but ,to my mind, it is perhaps the finest piece of bel canto-type music ever composed for oboe and orchestra.
Quote from: terry martyn on Friday 18 September 2026, 14:54One of the biggest mistakes I made in a 64-year collecting career was to buy her oboe concerto without pre-listening. I was hoping for another Bellini or Kalliwoda, and ended up with a pale,wan,unsatisfying attempt at a concerto.
You expected someone from the generation of Brahms and Goldmark to sound like someone from three decades before?
No. I was thinking of the calibre, not the style,of the oboe works. There aren't that many oboe concertos dating from the nineteeth century (Kuhlau is one of a couple of Danish composers that come to mind). But a virtuoso work of the standard of the Bellini and the Kalliwoda was what I had looked for. Ilja mentions "pre-impressionist", "more modern" ,and cites the Benoit flute concerto - none of the qualities I would be enjoying.
You mention Goldmark. A particular favourite of mine,even though two generations removed from the Bellini I am perfectly sure that ,had he composed an oboe concerto,it would have been as thoughtful,lyrical,and still as much of a virtuoso work as his superb Violin Concerto.
Oboe concertos (and concertinos? but excluding works not with those titles) from the 19th century... not many, agreed, but also Luft's (1813-88) concertinos, Libon's concerto (1809), Molique of course, Barth's Op.12 (pub.1823), Falcone's concerto (ca.1850?), Schmidt's Rietz & Klughardt's concertinos, etc. (If one expanded to 1915, one gets Rauchenecker's from 1905, too.)
I was checking in my collection index and,of course, I was wrong about Kuhlau (he composed a horn concertino,but not an oboe one). I also have one composed by Krommer and one by the Swiss composer Andreae. And I have a couple by Donizetti. And a rather forgettable one by Hugo Schuncke.
Quote from: eschiss1 on Monday 28 September 2026, 21:23Oboe concertos (and concertinos? but excluding works not with those titles) from the 19th century... not many, agreed, but also Luft's (1813-88) concertinos, Libon's concerto (1809), Molique of course, Barth's Op.12 (pub.1823), Falcone's concerto (ca.1850?), Schmidt's Rietz & Klughardt's concertinos, etc. (If one expanded to 1915, one gets Rauchenecker's from 1905, too.)
There are a few interesting ones in the early 20th century, though: Holst (with flute, 1923), Alexander Voormolen's (1933), Volkmar Andreae's (1941) and Joan Manén i Planas's Violin+oboe concerto (1945) and of course Richard Strauss (1946). The oboe concerto appears to remain the domain of romantics until well into the century.
I'm rather fond of the Andreae, even though it's well outside my narrow but well-trodden path
I have to quibble. The 1940s count as "Early 20th century" chronologically for IMSLP (for which the next category is Modern, starting in 1950) but is it, really? :) (And ok, yes, Boughton's of 1936 and 1937; less Romantic, Cyril Scott (1946), Rawsthorne's of 1947, RVW's of 1944 (with strings both), Holmboe Op.37 (1944-5)...)
Eric, amidst those fine English oboe concertos you cited, you missed Ruth Gipps's lovely (albeit perhaps just across the remit border) Concerto in D minor, Op. 20 (1941), which can be heard on a Chandos disc coupled with the Third Symphony. I'm sure you would enjoy it, if you don't know it already.
Thanks. I think it was more that I read Ilya's comment and thought "ok, it's true that Maderna's 3 are from the 1960s, but surely composers not Romantic, if not Modern either (so- Scott, Rawsthorne, RVW, Holmboe) put a word in too..." (e.g. Harald Saeverud's 1938 oboe concerto, earlier still, and Wikipedia reminds me of similarly "neo-classical" Gordon Jacob's (first concerto originally written as a quintet in 1933, e.g.)
But yes, back to Mme Grandval, of course, apologies!...
Quote from: eschiss1 on Thursday 01 October 2026, 16:18But yes, back to Mme Grandval, of course, apologies!...
Yes, of course, old man! Quite right. Anyway, the samples I've heard of her chamber pieces are exactly as Ilja described: looking toward the 20th century with more than a hint of the impressionistic. And this from a composer born seven years before Saint-Saens, who wouldn't go on to write music like this until the wind sonatas of his final year. Intriguing!
I disagree a little about Saint-Saëns, who was already moving towards a leaner style in others of his late works (certainly a couple of years before in 1919 with his 2nd string quartet, but perhaps even as early as 1899 with his 1st quartet, and a number of works of various sorts between the two...)
Quote from: eschiss1 on Friday 02 October 2026, 03:49I disagree a little about Saint-Saëns, who was already moving towards a leaner style [...] perhaps even as early as 1899 with his 1st quartet [...].
You are again quite right (said John, veering yet again off topic). The change in style was indeed already there by the '90s, as you point out. In fact, now that I think on it, it appears as early as 1896 in the Fifth Piano Concerto. Think of the atmospheric, even dreamy writing of the first movement, or the bravura exoticism of the second. He has his eye on the 20th century by the time he composed it.
With apologies for encouraging the further tangent, I was thinking even of the (imho quite memorable, Op.102, and also 1896) 2nd violin sonata, contemporary with the 5th piano concerto (I'm not even sure I know the concerto as well as the sonata, but that's happenstance - I have a fine Erato recording of the violin sonatas I've listened to much more often.) Anyhow, agreed! I wish I knew his operas practically at all the better to be able to track his development over time there, but there's a project for the future; I know that he quotes - as I know I keep mentioning - "The Jolly Miller" in his ballet music to Henry VIII (1883!) (quoted in one of those 1000 Themes books, and recognized by me because of Havergal Brian's overture on the same theme.)
I notice on Wikipedia that Grandval wrote a fair amount of choral ("liturgical" and "other") music, some of it dramatic. This set contains the 1870 Stabat Mater and the Villanelle that Wikipedia includes in the Other Choral though it's more of a vocal duet; also her 2nd piano trio and violin sonata. Will have a lookout for it...