Grace Mary Williams ( born Grace Mary Williams , Wall. Grace Mary Williams ; February 19, 1906, Barry , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland - February 10, 1977, Barry , United Kingdom ) is a British Welsh composer , the first female author of classical music from Wales [ 1] .
| Grace Mary Williams English Grace mary williams wall. Grace mary williams | |
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| basic information | |
| Birth name | |
| Date of Birth | February 19, 1906 |
| Place of Birth | Barry , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Date of death | February 10, 1977 (70 years old) |
| Place of death | Barry , UK |
| A country |  Great Britain |
| Professions | composer |
| Genres | classical music |
Content
Biography
Born in Barry on February 19, 1906 in a family of music lovers. Early learned to play the piano and violin. She played the piano in a trio with her father and brother, accompanying the choir under the guidance of her father. At the district school, she studied composition with a music teacher, Ryda Jones. In 1923, she received a Morphid Owen scholarship from Cardiff University. She studied at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, where Williams was taught by Professor David Evans. In 1926 she entered the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied with Gordon Jacob and Ralph Wogan Williams. Other well-known teachers of the composer were Elizabeth Maconchi, Dorothy Gough and Imogen Canvas [2] .
In 1930, she was awarded a scholarship to study abroad and chose to study with Egon Welles in Vienna, where she stayed until 1931. In Vienna, the composer went to performances in the opera "almost every night." Since 1932 she taught in London. During World War II, she and her students were evacuated to Grantham, Lincolnshire, where she wrote some of her early works, including Sinfonia Concentrata for piano and orchestra and The First Symphony. At this time, she created one of her most popular works, Fantasy on the Welsh Children's Songs (1940). “Marine Sketches” for a string orchestra, written in 1944, is the first work in which its mature style is manifested. This music clearly resembles the sea, in all its diversity of moods. In 1945, she returned to her hometown and lived in it for the rest of her life, devoting herself to musical creativity [2] .
In 1955, Williams wrote one of her most famous works for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales - Penillion. She repeated some of the same ideas in her 1963 Trumpet Concert. Despite the strong tradition of choral music in Wales, Williams wrote mostly instrumental works [2] . The 1968 Ballads for Orchestra, written by the composer for the National Aesthetics, which took place that year in her hometown, is riddled with medieval sound.
Among William's vocal compositions are the Ave Maris Stella anthem for soprano, viola, tenor and bass (1973) and six songs to the poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins for contralto and string sextet (1958). The cycle ends with two songs to the famous verses of Hopkins “Spotted Beauty” and “Kestrel”, in which her music is perfectly combined with the rhythmic subtlety of the texts. Williams has a Welsh song for Saunders Lewis’s Christmas poem “Rosin Duv” for soprano, viola, tenor and bass, accompanied by piano and viola (1955), which she later included in her large choral work, “Missa Cambrensis” (1971) .
The last completed works of the composer were, written by her in 1975, vocal compositions on verses by Kipling and Beddos for soprano, viola, tenor and bass, accompanied by a harp and two horns. Her latest compositions, in fact, cited a second symphony, written by Williams in 1956, and substantially revised by her in 1975. Grace Williams died at the age of 70 in February 1977.
During and after the war, Williams suffered from depression and other stress-related health problems. In 1949, she became the first British woman to receive the Blue Cliff Award for Documentary Films [3] . In 1960-1961, she wrote her only opera The Cabinet, which was staged only in 1966. In 1967, the composer refused the honor of being an officer of the Order of the British Empire [4] . The BBC Radio 3 dedicated a number of programs to her in the Composer of the Week program in August 2006, the year of the centenary of her birth [5] .
Notes
- ↑ Steph Power. Women composers of Wales: BBC Now, ty cerdd, Bangor new music festival . Wales Arts Review (March 8, 2016). Date of treatment December 11, 2016.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Grace Williams . Oriana Publications . Date of treatment December 8, 2016. Archived March 28, 2016.
- ↑ Jan G. Swynnoe. The Best Years of British Film Music, 1936–1958 . - Boydell Press, 2002. - P. 89–. - ISBN 978-0-85115-862-4 .
- ↑ Refused honors: who were the people who said no? (26 January 2012). Date of treatment July 23, 2017.
- ↑ BBC "Composer of the Week", July 2006
Audio Records
- Grace Williams. "Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes" - Grace Williams. “Fantasy on the Welsh Children's Songs” (1940) performed by the Wales National Youth Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Davison in 1969.
- Grace Williams. "Violin Concerto" - Grace Williams. “Concert for a violin” (1950); the violin part is performed by Matthew Trasler.
Links
- Blevins P. Grace Mary Williams - Biography . www.gracewilliamscompo.wixsite.com . - Grace Williams Official website. Date of treatment December 15, 2017. (English)
- Carradice ph. Grace Mary Williams . www.bbc.co.uk. - BBC Wales. Date of treatment December 15, 2017. (English)
- Rees H. Interview with Grace Williams shortly before her death . www.welshmusic.org.uk . - Welsh Music. Date of treatment December 15, 2017. Archived February 24, 2012. (eng.)