• Until the time when a composer’s gender can be ignored, let us welcome musicians who dig out works by women. Many, given social history, are written for piano. The new album by Antonio Oyarzabal, a London-based Spanish pianist, El Fin Del Silencio (The End of Silence) (Pixaudio) consists of 32 short pieces by 21 Latin American female composers. They date from the 19th century to our own time. I can claim proper familiarity with only one: the Venezuelan pianist, singer and composer Teresa Carreño (1855-1917), whose daughter Teresita is also featured.
From a wistful nocturne by the Cuban Cecilia Arizti (1856-1930) to a robust mazurka by the Bolivian Modesta Sanginés (1832-87) to a songlike lullaby by the Brazilian Clarisse Leite (1917-2003), there is much to discover. European influences in these miniatures are mixed with Latin accents, persuasively performed by Oyarzabal. Don’t be misled by the predominant mood of salon charm: there are some abrupt surprises: the Mexican Rosa Guraieb’s homage to Scriabin, for one.
To explore further the piano music by female composers, check out the American Sarah Cahill’s The Future Is Female, Vol 3: At Play (FirstHand). Cahill’s range is more eclectic and more familiar: Hélène de Montgeroult, Cécile Chaminade, Grażyna Bacewicz, Pauline Oliveros and Hannah Kendall among others. Several of the works are first recordings and worth investigating.
• The final disc of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s symphonies by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Martyn Brabbins (Hyperion), has been out a few weeks but is too good to miss. With its wind machine and wordless women’s chorus, cymbal crashes and fortissimo brass and organ, Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia antartica is a vivid aural depiction of the vast snowscape referred to in the title. The symphony grew out of his music for the 1948 Ealing Studios film Scott of the Antarctic.
This seventh symphony (with soprano Elizabeth Watts and BBC Symphony Chorus) is paired with the melancholy, visionary Symphony No 9, bringing this consistently excellent cycle to a close. After recent sets by Mark Elder and the Hallé, and Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, this is up there as essential listening: the BBCSO at their formidable best.
• The guest on this week’s Private Passions is Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor, who has a sideline as a gifted pianist and can make a TV jingle sound like Rachmaninov. Don’t miss. Sunday, noon, Radio 3 or BBC Sounds.
