A Musical Moment With Chris Sforza
On Saturday, November 6th students and faculty of CYM gave wonderful performances in the Falk Auditorium at the Winchester Thurston School in Shadyside. Violin, piano, and guitar were all showcased in a diverse collection of solos and duets. As a special addition, Ms. Leah and I gave performances of minuets by three women composers that I arranged for violin duet.
A few years ago, while teaching students at the Montessori Children’s Community a unit on women composers, I became inspired to find and arrange pieces for violin by these women that would be accessible for the playing abilities of young musicians. We were learning about the French Baroque composer Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665 – 1729) and listening to her exquisite Suite in d minor for harpsichord (1687). In this collection of movements contains a wonderfully haunting minuet, the first subject of my composing project.
I knew that a collection of minuets would be the perfect choice for my arrangement project as the musical form is comfortably at home for the Suzuki student. The violin literature alone from Books 1 – 10 contain roughly 9 minuets (two of which are minuet-style movements of larger works). However, none of these pieces are from women composers. It was my goal to bring these overlooked voices and their contributions to music, to a modern audience and to students.
After a few years of collecting pieces, searching through music, arranging, composing, rehearsing, editing, etc. I ended up with a collection of 12 minuets by 4 different women composers of the Baroque and Classical Eras. These pieces originated from music for solo piano, harpsichord, flute, as well as pre-existing violin duets in which I added newly-composed a piano accompaniments. On November 6th, Ms. Leah and I performed 6 of these arrangements by 3 of the composers, Anna Bon di Venezia, Elisabetta de Gambarini, and Jane Savage.
Anna Bon di Venezia was born in 1738. Much of her story has been lost to time, presumed to have died after 1769. Anna was sent to study music at the famous Ospedalle della Pietà, an orphanage for girls in Venice. It is this same institution that beloved composer Antonio Vivaldi at one point taught music and directed the orchestra. Anna wrote music for harpsichord, flute, violin, as well as voice.
Elisabetta de Gambarini was an English composer of Italian lineage born in Middlesex, England in 1730. She has the distinction of being the first women composer to publish a set of keyboard music in Britain. Elisabetta sang and performed throughout her career and wrote music for harpsichord, organ, as well as voice. She died in 1765.
Jane Savage was another English composer born in 1752. Not much is known about her life other than being the daughter of composer William Savage who had a close association with George Frideric Handel. Despite her music being largely forgotten and unpublished a choral work thought to be lost, Hymn for Christmas Day was re-discovered in 2020. It is the earliest known anthem for the Church of England by a woman composer. Jane died in 1824.
Thank you to all for attending and performing on November 6th and for listening to the performance of my violin arrangements!
Read about Chris on his Faculty Page here, and be sure to mark your calendars for Chris’s All Instrument Serenade held April 24th at 2:00 pm in Wexford.
