Program Notes: From Ruth Gipps to Vivian Fung

By Leilani Polk

Our musician-curated Chamber Series continues with several intriguing selections featuring artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. Opening the program is a selection by Cello Roberta Hansen Downey: Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet and String Trio by English composer Ruth Gipps (1921–1999). 

Gipps rose to prominence in the years immediately following the Second World War. While she struggled to secure performances of her compositions and to gain acceptance as an equal in the male musical establishment, she composed steadily, producing more than 70 works, including five symphonies. She was also very successful as a conductor, academic teacher and performer (she was an accomplished pianist, orchestral oboist and cor anglais player). She founded the London Repertoire Orchestra in 1955, running it virtually single-handedly for over 30 years while teaching and lecturing at Trinity College of Music, then Royal College of Music (where she originally attended as an undergraduate) and finally Kingston Polytechnic. 

Her Quintet was composed in 1941 as a piece for her final exams at Durham University (she later became the youngest British woman to receive a doctorate in music there). She met her future husband, clarinetist Robert Baker, when he performed in the premiere of her Quintet later that year at Wigmore Hall.  

Roberta became smitten with it performing with the Bellingham Chamber Music Society. “It is very much about the interplay between the instruments,” she says, describing it as a chamber symphony despite its single movement. Roberta says she was impressed when she found out it was written while Gipps was still in school, and likes its bucolic quality “fitting within the English pastoral tradition” while still revealing Gipps’ unique harmonic sense. “I think that's what I like about it; it’s harmonically different than most pieces we do but it’s still very much listenable.” 

Following intermission is a program selection from Clarinet Eric Jacobs: Vivian Fung’s Frenetic Memories for Clarinet and String Quartet. 

Vivian Fung is a prolific Canadian composer who writes for orchestras, operas, chamber ensembles, brass, piano, percussion, woodwinds, voice, choir and solo instrumentalists. She earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2012, a JUNO Award in 2013 and has received all manner of critical acclaim; NPR has called her “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” while The Philadelphia Inquirer praised her “stunningly original compositional voice” due to her technique of fusing Western musical forms with cross-cultural styles, including Balinese and Javanese gamelan, and folk songs from minority regions of China. Last month, she premiered her new Concerto for Violin and Four Percussionists, written in collaboration with Sandbox Percussion and Kristin Lee for their U.S. tour, and she is currently working on a new piece for Ensemble for These Times that will include homemade percussion for Haruka Fujii. 

Eric discovered Frenetic Memories, written in 2017, via the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and one of his favorite clarinet players, Romie de Guise-Langlois. “I’m always looking for newer works to perform and was so lucky to have stumbled on a world-class performance of it. Although the piece is short, it’s quite intense and has a surprise element at the end that really brings it all together.” He’d never encountered Fung’s work before and was entranced. “I love how she turns complex sound worlds into organic and captivating landscapes.” 

In her program note, Fung says she was inspired “both by the music of minority groups in Southwest China and by my travels to that region in 2012. My memories of the trip are simultaneously vivid and scattered — we heard many different groups and stayed with local families and farmers, taking in many new sounds, sights, and experiences, and at times it was a bit overwhelming. ... the music is quite intense and evocative and especially features the clarinet in a virtuosic way.” 

Eric encourages audiences to come with open ears. “This piece lives up to its name and is full of playfulness, passion and nostalgia.” He’ll be joined by colleagues who “have a curiosity about new music, a genuine love of performing and opinions! I don’t want the rehearsals or the performances to be boring …” 

The second half of the program continues with two works for the orchestra’s low brass section, a rarity in our chamber performances.  

First is Paul Hindemith’s Morgenmusik. Hindemith (1895–1963) is considered a significant German composer who left his home country as the Third Reich rose to power and his music was denounced by Nazis. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1938 and then to the U.S. in 1940. Though he became a U.S. citizen in 1946, he returned to Europe in 1953, living in Zürich and teaching at the university there until he retired from teaching in 1957. Morgenmusik (translated as “morning music”) was, according to Hindemith’s notes, “To be played from the top of a tower.” He conceived the six-minute piece as a tribute to the medieval tradition of greeting the sun with the bright blare of trumpets. Its premiere performance happened in June 1932 at dawn, from the top of Plön Castle’s tower. 

According to Bass Trombone Eden Garza, “Hindemith’s writing feels very honest. There’s nowhere to hide, and every line matters. It’s not flashy, but it’s incredibly satisfying once you settle into how carefully it’s built.” As a player, he was most surprised by its conversational tone. “You really have to listen across the ensemble at all times. It’s less about projecting and more about shaping the sound together.” 

He says Principal Trombone Ko-ichiro Yamamoto brought Morganmusik to the table to pair with Eden’s selection, which closes the program: Kevin Day’s Ignition. He first heard it on a COVID-quarantine-era video by the Boston Symphony’s low brass and couldn’t stop listening to it. Playing it is a very different experience. “The rhythmic sections feel like a machine that only works if every gear is perfectly aligned. It’s exciting, but you’re very aware of how exposed everything is. And then the tuba solo comes in and suddenly the piece feels almost intimate. That contrast is really powerful from within the group.” 

He first performed Ignition with a trombone quartet after they won a competition. “We asked Kevin Day to arrange it for us, which was a pretty special experience. Getting to work with the composer on something you already love makes it feel personal. … What I appreciate is how naturally he writes for low brass. It feels modern and exciting, but it also feels good on the slide and valves. He understands how we actually play.” 

Though they are both low brass selections, Morgenmusik and Ignition are each quite distinctive. As Eden points out, “Hindemith shows this earlier 20th century clarity and craftsmanship. Day shows how far low brass writing has expanded, technically and expressively.” 

He’s excited to collaborate with his low brass colleagues on both pieces. “In the orchestra, we often provide weight and depth. In this program, we get to sing, to move quickly, to take risks. I wanted the audience to hear that side of the section.”