Madeleine Dring

Synopsis

She’s been called a “British Gershwin” but perhaps a “British Poulenc” might more accurately describe the genial and graceful music of Madeleine Dring, a woman whose diverse and energetic creative life was cut short, when, at 53, she died suddenly on today’s date in 1977.

Dring was born into a talented musical family in 1923, and she showed early promise. On her tenth birthday she won a scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London, and eventually studied composition with Herbert Howells, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gordon Jacob. Dring was soon providing incidental music and songs for amateur and professional theatrics. She was also a gifted singer and actress, and performed occasionally on stage and television.

She married British oboist Roger Lord, and a number of her chamber works feature that instrument.

Six volumes of her songs were published after her death, largely through the persistence of her husband, and many of her other works have been published, performed, and recorded with increasing frequency, especially in the United States.

Sadly, Dring died just when women composers began to receive increasing attention from music historians, performers, and audiences worldwide. A British survey of her life and music was published in 2000.

Music Played in Today's Program

Madeleine Dring (1923-1977): Three Piece Suite; Cynthia Green Libby, oboe; Peter Collins, piano; Hester Park 7707

On This Day

Births

• 1925 - French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, in Montbrison

Deaths

• 1566 - Spanish composer and organist Antonio de Cabezón, 56, in Madrid

• 1827 - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, 56, in Vienna

• 1918 - Russian composer Cesar Cui, 83, in Petrograd (St. Petersburg)

• 1977 - British composer, pianist and actress Madeleine Dring, 53, in Streatham, London

Premieres

• 1723 - J.S. Bach: St. John Passion, at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concerto No. 5 in London as an intermission feature during a revival performance of Handel’s oratorio Deborah at the Covent Garden Theater (Gregorian date: April 6)

• 1827 - Rossini: opera Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh) at the Paris Opéra. This is the third and French-language version of Rossini’s Italian opera Mosè in Egitto (see March 3 and 7 above).

• 1943 - William Schuman: cantata A Free Song (after Walt Whitman), in Boston; This work won the first Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943

• 1958 - Henry Cowell: Ongaku a symphonic suite on Japanese themes, by the Louisville Orchestra. Robert S. Whitney conducting

• 1958 - Lutoslawski: Musique Funèbre (in memory of Béla Bartók), in Katowice, Poland

• 1960 - Ralph Shapey: Evocation for violin, piano and percussion, in New York City

• 1984 - Philip Glass: Act V (“The Rome Section”), from The CIVIL warS, at the Rome Opera, Marcello Panni conducting

• 1986 - Ned Rorem: The End of Summer for clarinet, violin, and piano, at Patkar Hall in Bombay (India), by the Verdehr Trio

• 1998 - Zwilich: Violin Concerto, at Carnegie Hall in New York, by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Hugh Wolff conducting, with soloist Pamela Frank

• 2001 - Corigliano: Mannheim Rocket, in Mannheim (Germany), by the Mannheim National Theater Orchestra

Others

• 1828 - Franz Schubert gives a concert of his own works in Vienna, to great success