Elizabeth Maconchy is one of those composers who I think
is going to have her moment.
There's so much talent and energy and determination there.
It's a little bit of a tragedy, the story of her compositional life.
She studied at the College from 1923-29 and I'm glad to say
she was happy in her time here and she was well encouraged.
She studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Charles Wood
but it's really difficult to trace their music in her music, very very individual voice.
What I hear much more clearly in her music, is the trace of everything
she encountered when she went to Eastern Europe,
when she went to Prague in 1930.
And it is also in that city where she had her first professional success.
So when I talk about tragedy, what do I mean?
She contracted tuberculosis in 1932 and as a result of that
she had to move out of London, away from where everything was happening,
into Kent.
Now, she was a very determined woman, and she continued to compose
and there was a steady stream of successes,
international successes, for her music.
But then of course, there was World War II.
And that prompted a further move into Shropshire, even further
away from where everything was happening.
And so, when I look at her life which was undeniably professionally successful,
I can only admire her tenacity, to continue maintaining her work,
maintaining public visibility and performances,
in the face of being out in the country and having two children to raise,
which is no mean feat.
The other thing about her which strikes me, is that
she was a great colleague.
The friendships that she made during her time at the College, and I'm thinking of
people like Grace Williams or Ina Boyle, stayed with her through her life.
And I'm so pleased to say that all of those composers are now
gradually receiving the recognition that they deserve,
after many decades.
20th century music is often regarded in terms of national origins.
We talk about British music, for example, or English music
and certainly it was a golden century for English music.
But actually, she wasn't English, she was of Irish descent.
And her dear friend Anne Macnaghten, the violinist who created
a very successful set of concerts that ran in the 1930s and then
again, after the War, well into the 1990s, said this of her:
'There is no conscious use, nor any discernible trace of Irish folk tradition
(in Maconchy's music), but if the Cotswolds can be found in
Vaughan Williams, and others of the English school,
it may not be fanciful to see another more disturbing landscape
in Maconchy's music. The Bear Mountains, dark lofts, black bogs
and turf stacks of Connemara, the country nearest her heart.'
And to me, that really transformed the way I heard this music,
its starkness and that sort of, the intensity and concentration of that landscape.
Again, the English pastoral idyll, it is miles away from this music.
I've presented Maconchy as someone who is really serious,
but the truth of it is, she's really versatile.
When it comes down to it, and we look at the list of works that was published
during her lifetime, a lot of which still remains to be rediscovered,
what we see is tremendous adaptability for whatever her
compositional life threw at her.
So she wrote well for children, she wrote well for amateurs.
Towards the end of her life, she wrote wonderful works for single instruments,
and those are a great entry point into her music, I think.
The way she explores the capability of a single cello, for example,
I think can bring her very close to the listener's heart.
So I really would encourage you to listen and explore, and if the
solo instrument route is not for you, then I think the stage works
will be a great discovery, rediscovery I should say,
for all of us over the coming years.