At first, not really having a musical background, (although, my grandfather was a professional pianist), I only really liked music by Chopin and Bach, and definitely no vocal pieces. These two composers I got to know of almost by accident. But I thought to myself, why on earth am I only listening to works by these two? The others can't all be garbage. So I got rid of my irrational musical prejudice and ended up loving loads of different stuff. Yay !
Anyway, it was very difficult to select five composers to highlight from such a huge array, and there are, if you will, gradations of well knownedness. So I have limited myself to choices from the romantic time period, probably my favourite era.
1. Doreen Carwithen (1922-2003)
Doreen was born in Buckinghamshire, England. She had her first music lessons from her music teacher mother at the age of four. In 1947 the rank Organization started an apprenticeship scheme for composers to specialise infilm music. Doreen became the first to be selected from the Royal Academy of Music. She wrote, among other pieces, overtures, a concerto for strings and piano, chamber music and over thirty scores for films. She was married in 1975 to her composer friend William Alwyn and since she didn't like the name Doreen, she used her middle name Mary. She founded the William Alwyn Foundation and Archive. Her last name Carwithen comes from an old Devonian family name dating back to the 1400s.
I've selected the 1st movement of the passionate Violin Sonata, one of only 3 chamber works, (unfortunately for everyone), that she wrote.
Some other works for violin and piano:
Violin Sonata No. 2 in e minor, Op. 30 by Ludwig Thuille
Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major, Op. 20, Poème by Georgy Catoire
Violin Sonata in c-sharp minor, Op. 21 by Ernő Dohnányi
David Pulsford, @lesser-known-composers
