A Musical Call to Arms! Why History Must Support Classical Music’s Female Pioneers
- Amy Bebbington
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Ruth Gipps was a composer of extraordinary gifts who spent her career fighting to be heard in a profession that often excluded her. Trained under Ralph Vaughan Williams, despite writing five symphonies and over 100 works, she faced immense gender discrimination, repeatedly being denied the opportunities, recognition and support her male peers received.
Goblin Market, her dramatic cantata inspired by Christina Rossetti's iconic poem, is vivid, emotionally charged, brilliantly scored and practically unknown. First heard in 1956, this extraordinary work has since been relegated to the shadows. On Friday 3rd July, Corra Sound, partnering with the Great Little Orchestra, will be performing it live - only its second complete UK performance in seventy years. The ensemble will also be professionally recording it for the very first time.
Why Does This Project Matter So Much?
Historically, female composers have struggled to have their voices heard and celebrated. Fanny Mendelssohn wrote over 450 works, yet many were printed under her brother Felix’s name. Clara Schumann’s prowess as a composer was overshadowed by her husband, Robert. Imogen Holst spent time and energy preserving the legacies of male contemporaries, pushing her own music into the background. Ethel Smyth was a composer and suffragette who fought to have her operas taken seriously and Doreen Carwithen, despite having an incredible skill for writing celebrated film scores, set her talents aside to promote her husband’s compositions. These names are likely unfamiliar or unknown.
To this day, female representation in classical music remains stubbornly under-reported and under-represented. Works by women account for between five and ten per cent of UK concert programming. The system is failing female composers, creating a cycle that only deliberate, funded intervention can end. Corra Sound is committed to leading the charge in breaking this mould. By performing and championing music by female composers, the ensemble is shining a light on significant works that demand to be heard.
When Female Creative Brilliance Is Left Unsupported
This Ruth Gipps project is one that should tick every single box. It offers a stellar collaborative performance by an elite all-female ensemble, a cantata by a highly-skilled female composer set by one of our greatest-ever female poets.
The concert programme includes further works by other 20th Century female composers. It includes a rare pre-concert conversation with the composer's daughter-in-law, Dr. Victoria Rowe. It will produce a unique professional recording of a work that has never been commercially released. And it places an overlooked British composer and the wider questions of women's creative voices in classical music firmly in the spotlight.
And yet…
Despite an inordinate amount of time spent applying for financial support, securing dedicated Arts funding to deliver this project has remained incredibly challenging. While we are delighted to have been granted £400 from The Music Reprieval Trust and are so grateful for the generous support from music lovers via our crowdfunding webpage, the amount raised so far is still a far cry from the total needed to run the project confidently (over £30k).
As one of only a few professional upper-voice ensembles, Corra Sound operates without agent representation and has built this entire project through continued goodwill donations, personal investment and sheer determination. This is what happens when structural barriers and funding bodies, slow to recognise the value of this work, meet female ambition that refuses to relent.
The Perils Of Neglecting Female Creative Voices
Goblin Market, steeped in themes of sisterhood, temptation and exclusion is an ironic narrative for the industry that neglected it; a cautionary tale about what is forfeited when brilliance is left unsupported. Christina Rossetti was a carer - a role not unfamiliar to many of the women in Corra Sound's ranks - yet it is precisely within this confluence of lived experience, resilience and social perspectives that female creativity thrives. Without funding and platforms for female composers, conductors and performers, the world risks losing fresh, innovative musical works that redefine musical boundaries. This imperils our global art scene, leaving it impoverished, imbalanced and unable to reflect the full complexity of human creativity.
Supporting this project is more than a charitable act. It’s a chance to be on the right side of history - to fund a recording that preserves a high-value lost work, to support a pioneering female ensemble, and to invest in a more equitable classical music landscape. It’s a musical call to arms!
Despite the challenges she faced, Gipps refused to be quietly shelved. She composed, taught, advocated and made opportunities for herself - even founding her own orchestra so that she could conduct! What a woman and what a pioneer! Don’t we owe her and all the other formidable female voices we are in danger of losing a permanent platform to be celebrated? We cannot continue to leave female creative brilliance in the dark. And we cannot risk making the next Ruth Gipps that comes along wait another seventy years to be heard.
Corra Sound performs Ruth Gipps' Goblin Market on Friday 3rd July at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford, with a pre-concert conversation featuring Dr. Victoria Rowe and writer Jessica Duchen. Support the performance and recording via the CorraSound crowdfunding campaign.
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