The short-lived, San Francisco-based Women’s Philharmonic, founded in 1981 and disbanded in 2004, had an enormous impact on America’s classical music scene, promoting not only the music of woman composers but performances by prominent woman conductors and soloists. In 1992, they made their first recording for the Koch International Classics label under the direction of conductor JoAnn Falletta. Musical Concepts is pleased to return this recording, featuring works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Germaine Tailleferre, and Lili Boulanger, to international availability.
“Musical Concepts continues to do the Lord’s work… Save for the piano concerto, these works are still seriously under-represented in recordings. So it’s good to have this one back in print. And despite its age, the album’s sound — and performances — hold up just fine”
-Ralph Graves, WTJU Charlottesville Classical
“A pioneering recording, originally released in the early 1990s and featuring the now-disbanded Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra, offers an intriguing and musically varied programme. Following a marvellously assured and spirited 1830 Overture by Fanny Mendelssohn are two attractive concertante works: Clara Schumann’s A Minor Piano Concerto, performed by Angela Chang, and Germaine Tailleferre’s bright and breezy Harp Concerto with Gillian Benet. But the highlight of this release has to be the evocative D’un Soir Triste and D’un Matin de Printemps by Lili Boulanger which date from 1918, only a year before her tragically early death at the age of 24. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
-Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine, December 2023
“Centenaries often yield rich results in recordings. … This one is music by women composers performed by the Women’s Philharmonic under Jo Ann Falletta which includes premieres of orchestral versions of two chamber-pieces, ‘D’un Soir Triste’ and ‘D’un Matin de Printemps’. I have waited many years to hear these and am overjoyed that they sound so well. Following the piano score of the first, I wonder again, ‘How did Lili do it?’ So many subtle sophisticated ideas: how did she think of them, or know they’d work? Because she was an artist-in-sound!”
–Gramophone, 1993
