Ruth Dorothy Louisa ("Wid") Gipps MBE[1] (20 February 1921 – 23 February 1999) was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor, and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos, and numerous chamber and choral works.[2] She founded both the London Repertoire Orchestra and the Chanticleer Orchestra and served as conductor and music director for the City of Birmingham Choir.[3] Later in her life she served as chairwoman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain.[4]

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1981 Birthday Honours for services to music.[5]

Life and career

Early life and education

Gipps was born at 14 Parkhurst Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, England in 1921 to (Gerard Cardew) Bryan Gipps (1877–1956), a businessman, English teacher in Germany, and later an official at the Board of Trade who was a trained violinist from a military family, and Hélène Bettina (née Johner), a piano teacher from Basel, Switzerland. They married in 1907, having met at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where Hélène had trained and went on to teach, and where Bryan had gone against his family's wishes to study the violin.[6]

Ruth Gipps had two elder siblings, Ernest Bryan [7][8] (1910-2001), a violinist, and Laura (1908–1962), also a musician. The Gipps family had Kent roots, descending from the eighteenth-century apothecary, hop merchant, banker, and politician George Gipps; Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales from 1838 to 1846, was a relative.[9][10] At his marriage, Bryan Gipps had started a small business to allow his wife to focus on her music; after a few years, the business failed, and they moved to Germany, where he taught English. When they relocated to Bexhill-on-Sea at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the family was in the then unusual position of a middle-class household's mother being the main provider, which along with Hélène's idiosyncrasies attracted some attention. The family home was the Bexhill School of Music, of which Hélène was principal.[11][2] Eventually becoming an official at the Board of Trade, her father was also the senior heir, via his mother, Louisa Goulburn Thomas, to the Carmarthenshire and Kent property of Richard Thomas, of Hollingbourne, near Maidstone, Kent, and of Cystanog, High Sheriff of Carmarthenshire in 1788.[12]

Ruth was a child prodigy, winning performance competitions in which she was considerably younger than the rest of the field. After she performed her first composition at the age of 8 in one of the many music festivals she entered, the work was bought by a publishing house for a guinea and a half. Winning a concerto competition with the Hastings Municipal Orchestra began her performance career in earnest.[13]

In 1937, she entered the Royal College of Music,[1] where she studied oboe with Léon Goossens, piano with Arthur Alexander and composition with Gordon Jacob, and later with Ralph Vaughan Williams. Several of her works were first performed there. Continuing her studies at Durham University led her to meet her future husband, clarinettist Robert Baker.[14] At age 26, for her work The Cat she became the youngest British woman to receive a doctorate in music.[15]

Professional career

Ruth Gipps was an accomplished all-round musician, as a soloist on both oboe and piano as well as a prolific composer. Her repertoire included works such as Arthur Bliss's Piano Concerto and Constant Lambert's The Rio Grande. When she was 33 a shoulder injury ended her performance career, and she decided to focus her energies on conducting and composition.[4] Gipps claimed to know from a young age that her main interest lay in composing, stating,

I had of course known all along that playing the piano was my job; the first concert merely confirmed it. But I also knew without a shadow of a doubt, although I had not yet written anything, that I was a composer. Not that I wanted to be a composer - that I was one.[16]

An early success came when Sir Henry Wood conducted her tone poem Knight in Armour at the Last Night of the Proms in 1942.[17] Gipps's music is marked by a skillful use of instrumental colour and often shows the influence of Vaughan Williams, rejecting the trends in avant-garde modern music such as serialism and twelve-tone music. She considered her orchestral works, her five symphonies in particular, as her greatest works. She also produced two substantial piano concertos. After the war Gipps turned her attention to chamber music, and in 1956 she won the Cobbett Prize of the Society of Women Musicians for her Clarinet Sonata, Op. 45.[17] In March 1945, she performed Alexander Glazunov's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the City of Birmingham Orchestra as a piano soloist while also, in the same program, performing in her own Symphony No. 1 on cor anglais under the baton of George Weldon.[18]

Discrimination

Gipps's early career was affected strongly by discrimination against women in the male-dominated ranks of music (and particularly composition), by professors and judges as well as the world of music criticism. Because of this opposition, she developed a tough personality that many found off-putting, and a fierce determination to prove herself through her work.[19]

Conducting and Orchestral Work

She founded the London Repertoire Orchestra in 1955[20] as an opportunity for young professional musicians to become exposed to a wide range of music. In 1957, she conducted the Pro Arte Orchestra. She later founded the Chanticleer Orchestra in 1961,[21] a professional ensemble which included a work by a living composer in each of its programs, often a premiere performance. Among these was the first London performance in September 1972 of the Cello Concerto by Sir Arthur Bliss in which the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber made his professional debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Teaching Positions

Later she would take faculty posts at Trinity College London (1959 to 1966), the Royal College of Music (1967 to 1977), and then Kingston Polytechnic at Gypsy Hill. In 1967 she was appointed chairwoman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain.[4]

Retirement and Death

In London, her address was 20 Heathcote Road, St. Margaret's, Twickenham.[22] On her retirement, Gipps returned to Sussex, living at Tickerage Castle near Framfield[23] until her death in 1999, aged 78, after suffering the effects of cancer and a stroke. Her son, Lance Baker, was a professional horn player and orchestrator and brass teacher.[24]

Music

Stylistically, Gipps was a Romantic both in the musical sense and in her choice of extra-musical inspiration (for example the tone poem Knight in Armour).[25] Although her music is not typically pastoral from a programmatic perspective, Gipps was heavily indebted to the English pastoralist school of the early 20th century, particularly her erstwhile teacher Vaughan Williams, but other figures, including Arthur Bliss (to whom she dedicated the Fourth Symphony),[26] her contemporary Malcolm Arnold, and George Weldon were also influential. Her conservative, tonal style placed her at odds with contemporary trends in music such as serialism, of which she was highly critical.[2] Her music was not featured in the Proms or broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in her lifetime.[27]

Selected works

Orchestra

Concertante

Chamber music

Piano

Choral

Vocal

Discography

Recordings of the music of Ruth Gipps include:

References

  1. ^ a b Foreman, Lewis (2 March 1999). "Obituary: Ruth Gipps". The Independent. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Halstead, Jill (2006). Ruth Gipps: Anti-Modernism, Nationalism and Difference in English Music. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-0178-4. Archived from the original on 30 August 2015. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  3. ^ https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gipps-ruth-1921
  4. ^ a b c The Musical Times, vol. 140, no. 1867 (Summer 1999), pp. 8–9
  5. ^ UK list: "No. 48639". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1981. p. 13.
  6. ^ "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/72069. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. ^ "BBC Programme Index". BBC Programme Index. BBC. 25 January 1939. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  8. ^ "Bookplate for musician Ernest Bryan Gipps". Rooke Books. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  9. ^ "Gipps tree – Canterbury History". www.canterbury-archaeology.org.uk. Archived from the original on 26 November 2021.
  10. ^ "GIPPS, George I (?1729–1800), of Harbledown, nr. Canterbury, Kent. | History of Parliament Online".
  11. ^ "'Remarkable' story of Dr Ruth Gipps", The Times, 26 May 1967, p. 9
  12. ^ The Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1979, p. 92
  13. ^ "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  14. ^ Johnson, Bret (30 March 1999). "Ruth Gipps obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  15. ^ Christ, Peter. "Little Tunes for the Big Bassoon", Crystal Records Inc. (1997). Compact Disk Folder.
  16. ^ Halstead, Jill (2006). Ruth Gipps: anti-modernism, nationalism and difference in English music. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-0178-4.
  17. ^ a b "Foreman, Lewis (2018): Notes to Chandos recording CH20078" (PDF). Chandos.net. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  18. ^ Gunderson, Finn S. Chandos Records Ltd. 2018. Audio Recording Booklet.
  19. ^ C. Pluygers: "Discrimination … the Career and Struggle for Recognition of Dr Ruth Gipps", Winds (1992), pp. 14–15
  20. ^ "LRO History – London Repertoire Orchestra". Londonrepertoireorchestra.org.uk. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  21. ^ "Ruth Gipps". Contemporary Music Review. 11 (1): 125–126. 1 January 1994. doi:10.1080/07494469400640781.
  22. ^ "List of members". Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association: 97–109 (101). 1957–1958. JSTOR 766078.
  23. ^ "Ruth Gipps by David Heyes (recital music)". Liuzzivito.blogspot.com. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  24. ^ Musical Opinion, vol. 92, 1968, p. 641
  25. ^ "Ruth Gipps: Symphonies Nos 2 & 4; Knight in Armour; Song for Orchestra".
  26. ^ Blevins, Pamela. Ruth Gipps and Sir Arthur Bliss (2005)
  27. ^ Duchen, Jessica. "In the Proms spotlight at last — music's forgotten greats". Times. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
  28. ^ What appears to be the first performance of the Clarinet Concerto took place on 2 November 2019 with soloist Peter Cigleris and the London Repertoire Orchestra
  29. ^ "Robert Plane to record with BBC Scottish and Martyn Brabbins". Tashmina.co.uk. April 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  30. ^ Broeker, Tobias (2014): The 20th Century Violin Concertante, Stuttgart: self-published (e-book). ISBN 978-3-00-047105-6
  31. ^ Opalescence, PFCD171
  32. ^ SOMMCD0641 (2021)
  33. ^ "Reawakened". Robertplane.com. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  34. ^ "British Horn Concertos SRCD316 [JQ]: Classical CD Reviews - May 2007 MusicWeb-International". Musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  35. ^ "Leighton & Gipps Piano concertos - Cameo Classics CC9046CD [PCG] Classical Music Reviews: April 2014 - MusicWeb-International". Musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  36. ^ Piano Concertos by Dora Bright and Ruth Gipps, liner notes, SOMMCD 273
  37. ^ "Classical CD Reviews- June 1999 Butterworth Symphony No 1/ Gipps Symphony No. 2". Musicweb-international.com. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  38. ^ "Chandos Records". Chandos Records. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  39. ^ "Chandos Records". Chandos Records. Retrieved 3 September 2022.
  40. ^ Guild GMCD7827, reviewed at MusicWeb International

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