I went WAY more political than normal in this month’s newsletter—thanks to the movies SINNERS & K-POP DEMON HUNTERS🙌🏻🥳 Best movies of the year with mega music plots!!! The classical music industry could take notes.
sarahfritz.substack.com/p/music-movi...
Clara Schumann: Warum willst du and’re fragen w/ Town Quartet. Sheet music for sale! Link in bio.
#cello #violin #stringquartet #classicalmusic #romanticmusic #claraschumann #femalecomposers
I’m enjoying my social media hiatus—focusing on writing for a while. I’m still doing the newsletter though, linking Clara Schumann to current events. Timeless problems:
open.substack.com/pub/sarahfri...
The opening of Clara Schumann's concerto, composed when she was 15 and premiered with Felix Mendelssohn conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Can't wait to perform this with the BBC Philharmonic and Nicholas Carter at Malvern Theatres, 9 May! 🎉 malvern-theatres.co.uk/event/bbc-ph...
Today, a brief history of Fanny Hensel's Easter Sonata 🐰🐣🪺💐🎹 and some lore about the origins of Henselpushers.
“Women who have stepped into their power. Women who show up, speak up and fight
back, not just for themselves but for their families, their communities, and future generations of women who know that progress is not promised but fought for.”
@newyorkstateag.bsky.social
A lovely review of Myra book just out from Michael Church in the Camden New Journal 😍
www.westminsterextra.co.uk/article/why-...
with Jeff, some number crunching for VAN on the overlap between MAGA donors and classical music philanthropy. turns out it's quite high!
van-magazine.com/mag/republic...
This weekend I spent time with the bust of 70yr old Clara Schumann in the Vienna Musikverein. Of the dozens of composer busts in the building… she’s the only woman.
Is it Clara or Robert?...and submit...we'll see...
Out today: The Faber Music Women Composers Piano Anthology
🎹Suitable for intermediate pianists
💐Over 50 pieces from women spanning several centuries
🎼Many pieces in print for the first time
🖼️Featuring 'A Conversation' by Vanessa Bell on the cover
#IWD2025
Search traffic is up for Fanny Hensel's String Quartet... so I'd like to remind everyone that the most widely used edition--and therefore most performances--are wrong.
tldr: use Furore's edition or my edition, not Breitkopf & Härtel's
long version:
It's been ages (okay a few months) since I've posted about the Beach Violin Sonata, so just to stay in shape let me recommend that you listen without delay to the slow movement, whose climax is the Romantic violin sonata equivalent of falling into the vat of liquid metal at the end of Terminator 2
A VAN starter pack 💖
(DM for inclusion if we've missed you)
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***New POST***
On writing about Clara Schumann’s prodigy career—plus Franz Grillparzer’s gorgeous poem about her history-making Beethoven at age 18:
open.substack.com/pub/sarahfri...
Really enjoyed this documentary about the amazing Hazel Scott - well worth a look (and free on demand for the next two weeks).
www.pbs.org/video/the-di...
*NEW POST*
Wonderful as ever to speak to Samantha Ege about her work - this time on Margaret Bonds for my choral column in Choir & Organ Magazine!
Read the full article here: www.gramophone.co.uk/choir-and-or...
Her contemporaries were playing mostly variations & virtuoso pieces that weren’t really opuses. Clara was the first pianist programming Robert’s work.
I certainly think both! fabulously flawed, stupendously brilliant.
Realizing just now—
Of Clara Schumann’s 1200+ concerts not a single one was the same program. 🤯
Some thoughts on the Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center, for @vanmusicmag.bsky.social (may be paywalled. Subscribe to VAN!)
van-magazine.com/mag/trump-ke...
One company standing up to Trump’s diktats is White Snake Projects, a Boston opera company that, in light of new funding requirements adopted by the NEA, is doubling down on its commitment to diversity.
Its founder Cerise Lim Jacobs speaks to Jeffrey Arlo Brown.
van-magazine.com/mag/white-sn...
Same—I think “party at Clara’s” was probably the best thing evrrr
Oh & then there was the girls beach trip that ended at the Belvedere in Weimar & her taking her girlfriends to sing for the grand duchess— oh so normal.
sober she pretty much would rather play piano than talk to people—but then she loved champagne & “was very merry!”🥂🥂🥂 woohoo!
Undoubtedly
Honestly Clara Schumann was just kinda weird like… if she lived today most of us would be like… whoaaaa… 😳 that’s a LOT.
A new series about women composers! And starting with the wonderful @errollynwallen.bsky.social
