Tim Mahon wrote:

>There certainly seem to be more than a mere handful of female
>composers from a cursory search of existing resources, but woefully
>under-represented in recordings.

One female composer whose music has been recorded, and is well worth
hearing, is Grace Williams.  I'd strongly recommend her 2nd Symphony to
anyone who enjoys 20th-century symphonic music.  It dates from 1956, and
it's one of those pieces which suffered because it was too modern to be
'standard repertoire' but not modern enough for the modernists.  There are
fewer echoes of Britten than in her earlier works, and the writer of the CD
notes has it about right in saying that if it resembles anyone else, it's
the aggressive Vaughan Williams of the 4th and 6th symphonies.

The other works on the CD (Lyrita SRCD 327) are the Ballads for Orchestra,
fine, menacing pieces which sound like a cross between Mahler and Malcolm
Arnold, and a setting of Milton, "Fairest of Stars", which I didn't much
care for (I found the voice part overly ornate).

There's another CD (SRCD 323) which contains five of Williams's best-known
pieces, including the Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes and the Sea Sketches.
They're all attractive and well worth hearing, but it's the 2nd Symphony
which is the masterpiece IMO.

Peter Varley
[log in to unmask]