Ruth Gipps: Symphony no. 3 in Sweden and the U.S.

On the 3rd April the Portland Youth Philharmonic Orchestra gave the United States première of Ruth Gipps’ sparkling and lyrical Third Symphony, and they have been generous enough to upload their performance to YouTube.  This followed another magnificent rendition of the Third, the Swedish première, with dedicated Gipps revivalist Rumon Gamba conducting the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

It follows, too, hot on the heels of the revival of the Fifth, first by the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra and then in London by the Westminster Philharmonic.  I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the latter performance with some friends; it was a tremendous experience to hear it live — a symphony rich in beauty, rescued from obscurity.  I have to say that I found the first movement too fast, so that some of the details, and the excitement, of the tremendous climax was lost — but I cannot really complain, since a live concert performance of the symphony seemed unthinkable only a few years ago.  The programme notes were excellent, incidentally.

All this means that all four of Gipps’ mature symphonies have received concert performances on both sides of the Atlantic.  The first remains something of mystery — rejected or withdrawn because it was an early work?  The clarinet concerto, written when Gipps was nineteen, has been performed and recorded, so there seems no reason to assume that the symphony is not worthy of the same.

It has been such a heartening experience to see Ruth Gipps’ star continue to rise over the last few years, and to hear all these wonderful new recordings — including four live performances.  My only slight anxiety is that the revival is in some ways politically motivated, that is, that Gipps is being promoted more because she was a woman who suffered prejudice than because she was a superb composer.  It is certainly true that she experienced prejudice as a woman composer and conductor, and that the Gipps Revival helps to right that wrong, but the prejudice which seems really to have cut her to the quick was what followed later; the complete rejection of her tonal style of composition at a time when atonalism was all the rage.  This aspect of her story receives less attention.  The lesson to be learned from her life is surely that we should avoid prejudice of all kinds, including those of the fashions of the time — to which the musical world seems surprisingly prone.  If we revive Gipps’ music on political grounds alone, she will lapse back into obscurity the moment the Zeitgeist passes.  But if we judge her as she herself would have wanted to be judged — by her music — then she is assured of a permanent, well-deserved place in the pantheon of twentieth-century British music.