On the week of her album release, Elisabeth Remy Johnson talks about her new solo record on Albany Records “Quest” (Albany Records, TROY1863, released which features works by over a dozen women composers, including many of the harpist's own transcriptions. We asked her about the project, her transcription process, how far we’ve come in recognizing women in classical music, and her busy 2021-22 season.
What inspired you to choose the repertoire for the album? Were you already familiar with all these works, or in the process of making the album did you discover new composers and works you wanted to include?
I like to explain the need for gender equity in programming from a standpoint of logic. Unless we’re willing to posit that men are inherently better at composing music – and I’m not – then we’re missing half of the best music out there, most of the time. There are many works on this album that I didn’t know 12 months ago. Some works I got to know by playing through music I’d ordered, some I found through, of all things, Twitter, which has an amazingly vibrant and supportive new music community.
For example, I’d known for a long time “Felix Mendelssohn had a talented sister.” However, when I played through her “Mélodie” for the first time, I literally had tears in my eyes. It’s one thing to know an historical fact, and another to hear her voice, which has been largely silenced for so long. The recording repertoire had been set, but I was playing through “Mélodie” on Fanny’s birthday, a month before the recording date, and felt compelled to include her.
This process of discovery has by no means hit an endpoint. Current obsessions include Amanda Aldridge, an amazing London-born composer. Her father was Ira Aldridge, a Black Shakespearian actor who moved from America to England in 1824, in the hope of finding a less racist working environment, and indeed, he became internationally acclaimed. Amanda Aldridge’s music is very hard to find, but I have a request in to the Library of Congress to receive a few piano works of hers that are out-of-print. I know one movement of one piano work of hers that is a thrill to play on harp, and can’t wait to find out more about her and her work.
What’s your process for transcribing works, particularly the ones that were originally written for piano, for your instrument? I know in many ways harp and piano music is similar, but what sacrifices do you have to make when transcribing?
It is of primary importance to me to really try to get to know the music, and to be faithful to its intent as I present it on harp. With the historical composers, all of them were also pianists, and some of them were truly exceptional performers. Clara Schumann and Amy Beach were of course highly lauded concert pianists. Mel Bonis was another truly lovely pianist. She often played the piano part in her chamber works, but she really didn’t enjoy the spotlight of a solo pianist. When you think about these women’s ability at the piano, and think about the societal conventions and restrictions they were confronted with, this was their voice. This was how they could truly speak without constraint, or deference, or propriety. Nothing about a transcription should dim or alter their voice. So, when I find a piece of music I love, I am willing to work as hard, and as creatively, as I possibly can to see if I can play it, authentically, on the harp.
Transcribing pieces from piano to harp can be challenging – pianists use all 5 fingers of the hand, harpists only use 4. Also, harps have 7 pedals at the bottom, each with 3 positions. These are used to change the key of the instrument. Imagine the 47 strings of the harp being just the piano’s white keys, and pedals being used to tighten or loosen those strings to become the black keys of the piano. A transcription must clearly show accurate fingerings and when pedals must be moved, among other accommodations. Sometimes the original piano music becomes quite convoluted, so the next necessary step is “engraving”, re-writing the music with a computer program and re-printing as a transcribed part.
Recently, the music industry has started (albeit slowly) to reckon with its historical lack of women composers being represented in programming decisions. What do you think has contributed to this shift in mentality, and why are some of the composers featured in Quest still relatively unknown?
To be honest, this is a cyclical process, and we can never take our foot off the pedal. Entrenched attitudes can take generations to change. Mel Bonis was praised as one of the most brilliant pupils at the Paris Conservatory, but later in life, you can read her letters desperately scribbling for publishers to give her a fair deal. In a biography of Amy Beach, a reviewer of one of her performances was quoted, “As Robert Schumann prettily put, the names of true woman composers can be written on the leaf of a rose.” That shows a lot of things – pushing 75 years after he said that, that kind of statement was still thought “pretty”, and authoritative.
Also, I’m a big running fan. When Shalane Flanagan won the NYC Marathon in 2017, there was a lot of talk about the “Shalane Effect” – she had been training with men a lot, was joined by more female teammates over the years, and instead of being threatened, she lifted them up, supported them, and they ALL did better. Well, you know what? Amy Beach was doing the same thing 100 years ago. She advocated for women composers (she wrote a strongly worded, published defense after women composers were publicly denigrated by a prominent male composer), and formed a league for their support and promotion. Her projects were derailed by the Depression, and the cycle began again. Equity is important, or we’re missing half of the best music out there.
Tell me about The Even-ing Standard? How does Quest fit into the project, and where do you see it going?
The Even-ing Standard is a really fun project where each month I post on social media a performance of a generally less-known work by a female composer. It’s a project to even out and open up the concept of standard repertoire. “Quest” is a recording compilation of some of my earlier discoveries, but there is no end in sight.
In the works is a publication of a seven composer anthology of 19th century and early 20th century works that I have transcribed, with a special attention to providing a range of works from a more introductory level to professional expertise. The anthology will be my transcriptions, but the project encompasses much more, including some obscure harp works that are truly lovely. I also believe strongly in being a vocal advocate for the women composing today, both by incorporating their works into my performances and using their works in my teaching studios.
This publication will be 24 pages of sheet music, and will include an introduction with biographies of the composers: Amanda Aldridge, Amy Beach, Mel Bonis, Lili Boulanger, Cécile Chaminade, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and Clara Schumann. The pieces are beginner (2), intermediate (4) and advanced (1), so harpists of all levels can add historical women composers to their repertoire.
As we all gradually head toward a post-pandemic world, what plans/projects do you have in mind?
My 2021-22 season is busy! It’s amazing how we’ve gone from nothing-nothing-nothing to recording for broadcast to recording plus performing live, and next year looks like it will be a full orchestra performance schedule, while maintaining the A/V component. I recently had my first inside performance for an audience. During the first four, quiet measures, I heard some papers rustling in the audience and almost cried. It was such a gift to perform for an audience again in the same space, at the same time.
I’m headed to Wyoming for a good portion of the summer, to play with the Grand Teton Music Festival, which I love. I’ll be performing orchestral works, the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto, and also some great chamber music, including a trio by Mel Bonis, and The Merian Ensemble’s most recent commission, by Kimberly Osberg.
My other projects include a solo harp commission I’ve been talking about with Clarice Assad, which would form a Triptych with the pieces by Amy Beach and Freya Waley-Cohen that are on this recording, and would involve a strong visual component. The Merian Ensemble has a long-term project to record an album of our commissions and transcriptions, with a strong emphasis on works composed by first-generation and newly immigrated American women.