CLASSICAL MUSIC : Female Composers Give Way to ‘Androgynous’ Concerts

Championing the place of women composers is no longer radical, but, 15 years ago when pianist Nancy Fierro took up the cause, it did more than raise eyebrows.

“When I first started giving piano recitals devoted to women composers, I got a lot of hostility from men,” Fierro said. “They thought what I was doing was some sort of sideshow.”

But, for the women who attended Fierro’s programs devoted to the music of Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Maria Szymanowska and other neglected female composers, hearing this music was a consciousness-raising experience.

“It was a kind of release, because for the first time women realized that they had creative models who wrote music more than 100 years ago.”

The Los Angeles pianist and member of the Mt. St. Mary’s College music faculty noted that her efforts to research and learn this musical repertory coincided with the beginning of the women’s movement. Although she was not alone in this quest to bring women composers out of their obscurity and into the concert hall--pianist Virginia Eskin was mining this terrain in Boston at the same time--her recording, “Premiere Recorded Performances of Keyboard Works by Women,” was one of the first of its kind.

Saturday at 8 p.m. in the sanctuary of St. James Church, Solana Beach, Fierro will perform works by both Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann, as well as by Szymanowska.

“Unless someone asks me for an all-women composer concert,” she said, “I prefer to give ‘androgynous’ programs, that is, programs balanced between men and women composers.”

When asked if Clara Schumann’s piano compositions were as good as those of her more celebrated husband Robert Schumann, Fierro gave a properly nuanced comparison.

“Robert’s compositional output was much more extensive, so comparisons are not easy. How can you compare a single short character piece to the entire cycle of Robert Schumann’s ‘Carnival’? Clara thought of herself as a performer, not a composer. Except for her Piano Concerto, which she completed at age 16, she did not undertake larger works. But she is not a second-rate composer by any means.”

Clara Schumann never escaped the limitations placed upon her by 19th-Century mores. Composition was considered to be “too intellectual” and beyond the grasp of women, so she never was able to imagine herself becoming a composer, in spite of the promising works she turned out as a teen-ager. According to Fierro, even Clara Schumann’s prowess as a concert pianist, a talent zealously encouraged by her domineering father, was ironically indebted to the cramped social vision of the 19th Century.

“Clara’s father treated her as if she were a firstborn son.”

Talmi back in town. Music director designate Yoav Talmi makes his last appearance this season Friday and Saturday evening on the podium at Copley Symphony Hall and Sunday afternoon at Bowers Auditorium, a concert presented by the Fallbrook Music Society. Talmi arrived last weekend to participate in Monday’s auditions for the vacant principal horn position. Operations director Drew Cady said about 50 entrants, including symphony players John Lorge and Ethan Dulsky, had been confirmed for the horn audition. On May 7, aspirants will be heard for the principal viola chair, which recently became vacant when Yun-Jie Liu took a position with the National Symphony. Talmi will not conduct any of the SummerPops concerts at Hospitality Point, but will return to open the fall season Oct. 5.

Symphony soloist cancels. Nigel Kennedy, the versatile young British violinist who was scheduled to play Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto on May 4-5 with the San Diego Symphony, called in sick Monday morning. While on tour in Hawaii, Kennedy came down with a case of food poisoning and bailed out of his San Diego performances. At noon Monday, the symphony was still tracking down a substitute who could play the concerto.

Verhoye in Carmel. San Diego pianist Bryan Verhoye, winner of the 1989 Carmel Music Society competition, returned to Northern California last month to give his winner’s recital. After his performance at Carmel’s Sunset Auditorium, critic Patrick Franklin of Monterey’s daily The Herald praised Verhoye for his youthful vigor, strength and passion. Verhoye’s program included Robert Schumann’s “Faschingsschwank aud Wien,” Beethoven’s A Major Sonata, Op. 101, and Stravinsky’s Three Movements from “Petrouchka.” Verhoye, who is pursuing a graduate degree at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory, will return to San Diego this July to play a solo recital.

East Indian festival. Sanjukta Panigrahi, master of Odissi classical dance, will perform under the auspices of the Center for World Music on Friday night at Black Mountain Middle School, Rancho Penasquitos. Panigrahi will be assisted by an ensemble of East Indian instrumentalists and vocalists. This program is part of the center’s laudable spring festival of programs celebrating the musical traditions of Asia. On June 17, noted sitarist Ravi Shankar will play a benefit concert for the center in the grand ballroom of Mission Valley Marriott Hotel.