Music scholars continue to debate whether or not the diverse range of styles in his music serve as an outward representation of an inner moral conflict in Poulenc. His compositions spanned from intimate chamber sonatas with sublime, twisting melodies and delicate impressionist harmonies (think the 1957 Flute Sonata), to his Piano Concerto and epic one-act opera for soprano and orchestra, La voix humaine.
Woolf described it as “like being caught by a giant crab”, for better or worse.Īs well as being one of the first openly gay composers full stop, Poulenc also didn’t eschew his sexuality in the context of his religious faith. Her 1911 song, ‘The March of the Women’, which had lyrics by Cicely Hamilton, was dedicated to movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst – documented to have been a lover of Smyth’s – and became the official anthem of the Women’s Social and Political Union and women’s suffrage activism around the world.Īt the age of 71 Smyth, by all accounts, met and fell in love with Virginia Woolf (who would have been in her 40s at the time).
Her best-known works are the opera The Wreckers and her Mass in D. His ground-breaking operas, which include Peter Grimes (1945), and The Turn of the Screw (1954) – and his famous War Requiem – tackle contemporaneous issues around psychology and post-war trauma, as well his own homosexuality, which was illegal in Britten’s lifetime.īritten founded the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk with Pears and librettist Eric Crozier.Įthel Smyth was a prolific composer and an active member of the women’s suffrage movement, and she made no secret of her relationships with women.īorn in South-East London, Smyth studied at the Leipzig Conservatory and there met composers that included Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Clara Schumann and Brahms. He studied under Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Arthur Benjamin among others, and was also a fine pianist. Read more: 9 Black composers who changed the course of classical music historyĮdward Benjamin Britten is one of the finest composers of English operas, choral works, and songs, many of which he wrote for his life partner, tenor Sir Peter Pears.īritten started writing music as young as nine, when he wrote an oratorio.