The extraordinary revival over the past ten years in the music of Ruth Gipps (1921–1999), so vindictively neglected in her lifetime, has now been sustained long enough that her reputation can be said to have been rehabilitated, and is in fact more favourable than ever before. Instrumental (in both senses!) in this turnaround have been Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra and their conductor Adam Stern, who have deliberately and courageously, but also with confidence in themselves and in the composer, programmed Gipps’ music in their concert programmes – music which, having been in most cases unperformed for decades, would inevitably be unfamiliar to their audience – and notched up three American premieres of her works. Their efforts have also encouraged the revival here in Britain: it was through Adam that the orchestral parts for the dormant, unpublished Fifth Symphony were transcribed and printed, so that it could be performed for the first time since 1982. ‘The privilege of being in service to this major composer’s music is a continual joy,’ writes Adam – but his hard work and dedication should not be underestimated. It has in fact been crucial.
In October Adam conducted the Federal Way Symphony Orchestra (of Federal Way, Washington State) in the premiere of the Double Concerto for Violin, Viola and Small Orchestra, Op. 49 (1957), and tomorrow, Saturday 31st, in the Benaroya Hall, Seattle, he returns with the Philharmonic to add a fourth US premiere to their collective trophy-cabinet, that of Gipps’ First Symphony (1942). ‘Big, tuneful, lush,’ writes Adam, ‘with Gipps giving it her all as she tackles her first work in this genre’ — written, remarkably, when she was still a student.
The Philharmonic have surely established themselves as the foremost Gipps orchestra in the United States, and are rivalled only in the rest of the world by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Thank you, Adam, and all musicians involved, and warm transatlantic wishes for another successful concert.
Adam Stern introduces Gipps’ First Symphony
