A Room of Her Own (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring 

Lili Boulanger ((1893-1918): D’un matin de printemps; D’un soir triste; Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944): Trio No. 1, Op. 11; Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983): Trio; Dame Ethel Smith (1858-1944): Trio. Neave Trio (Anna Williams, violin; Mikhail Veselov, cello; Eri Nakamura, piano). CHANDOS CHAN 20238

The title tells the tale as this release from the Neave Trio makes a space for some women composers who have been largely overlooked by many classical music fans. The program opens with music by Boulanger – not the well-known French composer and instructor Nadia Boulanger, but rather her younger sister, Lili, who died at the tragically young age of 24. She suffered from a chronic illness that meant she most likely knew her days were limited when she penned this wistful, at times bordering on melancholy music. Such a shame it is to lose such a talent at such a tender age. A much longer life was enjoyed by the next composer on the program, Cécile Chaminade, also French, who started composing at the age of seven. Her trio is more upbeat in mood than the preceding music by Boulanger. Especially lively is the third movement, marked Presto leggiero, which simply sparkles. 

Then it is on to a third French composer, Germaine Tailleferre, who originally composed her four-movement trio back in the years 1916-1917 but then revised it in 1987 – six decades later! Interestingly enough, her original surname was not Tailleferre, and no, it did not change because of marriage. According to the liner notes, “her musical education was undertaken against the will of her father, and she changed her surname from ‘Taillefesse’ to ‘Tailleferre’ as a mark of protest.” Her Trio is light and lively, with the longest movement lasting barely more than four minutes. 

 

The program then concludes with a trip across the English Channel for the music of the English composer Dame Ethel Smyth, who actually acquired her musical education not in London but in Leipzig. The Piano Trio recorded here appears not have been performed during her lifetime. The liner notes point out, in fact, that whatever modest measure of success she may have enjoyed stemmed from a few larger-scale works she composed later in her career, not from her earlier chamber works, of which this trio is an example. Those listeners who equate English chamber music with dreamy pastoral meandering will be surprised by the final two movements here, which are zesty and kinetic. Kudos to the Neave Trio and Chandos for bringing us some music outside the mainstream that is at once both entertaining and enlightening.