Freda Swain (31 October 190229 January 1985) was a British composer, pianist and music educator.

Biography

Freda Swain was born in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

, England, the daughter of Thomas and Gertrude (née Allen) Swain. Her first piano lessons (from age 11) were at the

Tobias Matthay Tobias Augustus Matthay (19 February 185815 December 1945) was an English pianist, teacher, and composer. Biography Matthay was born in Clapham, Surrey, in 1858 to parents who had come from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised Brit ...

Piano School in London, given by Matthay's sister Dora. Altwegg, Timon.
Freda Swain: an Introduction
' (notes to Toccata CD TOCC0579 (2022) Three years later she went to study composition with

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic music, Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was ed ...

and piano with

Arthur Alexander Arthur Alexander (May 10, 1940 – June 9, 1993) was an American country-soul songwriter and singer. Jason Ankeny, music critic for AllMusic, said Alexander was a "country-soul pioneer" and that, though largely unknown, "his music is the stuf ...

at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

, earning awards including the Sullivan Prize in 1921. In 1924 Swain began teaching at the Royal College and in 1936 she founded the British Music Movement to help promote the efforts of young composers and artists. Swain married Arthur Alexander in 1921, and before World War II the couple toured South Africa and Australia, lecturing, broadcasting and performing recitals. They were both on the founding board of the Surrey College of Music from the mid-1940s. From 1942 they lived in a bungalow on Chinnor Hill in Oxfordshire. Alexander died in 1969. Freda Swain died on 29 January 1985.

Composition

Swain wrote some 450 pieces, piano and chamber music as well as many songs, but also opera and orchestral works, including two piano concertos and a clarinet concerto. Few were performed aside from a series featured in the NEMO Series of concerts that Swain herself founded after the war. Her first major success was ''The Harp of Aengus'' for violin and orchestra (after the

Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

poem), with soloist

Achille Rivarde Achille Rivarde (31 October 186531 March 1940) was an American-born British violinist and teacher, who worked mainly in Europe and London. Biography Serge Achille Rivarde was born in New York City to a Spanish father and an American mother. He ...

Queen's Hall The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. Fro ...

in January 1925. The solo Violin Sonata was premiered by May Harrison at

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

on 8 December 1933. Her "Airmail" Piano Concerto, mailed in instalments to her husband Arthur Alexander while he was stuck in South Africa during World War II, was performed by Alexander in Cape Town. She composed a one-act opera ''Second Chance'', but left two other operas incomplete. Her piano compositions include three large scale piano sonatas and 40 or so other works for solo piano, including many educational pieces. There is also a substantial cello sonata, two violin sonatas (one with piano, the other unaccompanied), two string quartets, a piano quartet, a sextet with horn and clarinet, a Suite for Six Trumpets and many other chamber and instrumental pieces. Swain's surviving manuscripts were handed down to her pupil and friend David Stevens, founder of the Swain-Alexander Trust. In turn they were passed on to Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg in 2005, who has begun recording the piano works for Toccata Classics. A CD of her chamber music was issued by

Dutton Vocalion Dutton Vocalion specialises in re-issuing on CD music recorded between the 1920s and 1970s, and in issuing albums of modern digital recordings. It was established by British recording and re-mastering engineer Michael J. Dutton. Dutton Laborator ...

in 2024.

Selected works

Chamber

* ''Dance Forms from an Unknown Country'', for flute, oboe, clarinet and piano (1958) * ''Festival Suite'' for horn, piano and percussion (1967) * ''Lamentations'', for 2 cellos and piano (1960) * Piano Quartet in G minor "The Sea"(1950) *'* Sextet (with horn and clarinet) * ''Solemn Salutation'' for brass ensemble (1951) * String Quartet No. 1 in E minor ''Norfolk'' (1924) * String Quartet No. 2 in G minor (1949) * Suite for Six Trumpets (1952) * Tercet for violin, viola and cello

Instrumental

* Ballade for violin and piano (1956) * Berceuse for violin and piano (1919) * ''By the Loch'' for cello and piano (1960) *Cello Sonata in C minor (1923) *''Contrasts'' (1953) for clarinet and piano ('Heather Hill' and 'Derry Down') *''A Country Pastoral'' for organ (1957) *''Danse Barbare'' for violin and cello *''English Reel'' for viola and piano (1958) * ''English Pastoral'' for organ (1958) *''Fantasy Suite'' for oboe and piano * Highland Hills for violin and piano (1951) * Hornpipe, Air , Jig and Finale, also known as "Movements" for violin and piano (1955) * Imitation and Reversion for violin and piano (1955) * ''Laburnum Tree'' for clarinet and piano (1960) * Lento con espressione for violin and piano * Lento e teneramente for violin and piano * Nocturne for violin and piano (1957) * Pastoral Reflection for violin and piano (1953) * ''Pipe Tunes'' for clarinet and piano * ''Rhapsody'' for clarinet and piano (for Frederick Thurston) *Sonata for violin in C minor ?? (no traces of that one) *Sonata for violin in B minor, ''The River'' 1925 (Lost) *Sonata for violin in G minor (1947) *''Song at Evening'' for viola and piano (1958) * ''Summer Rhapsody No. 1'' for viola and piano (performed 1936) * Vielle Chanson Triste for violin and piano * ''Waving Grass'' for clarinet and piano (1960) *''The Willow Tree'' for clarinet and piano (1948)

Orchestral

* Clarinet Concerto * Concertino for clarinet, horn and strings *''The Harp of Angus'' (1925), tone poem for violin and orchestra * ''Miniature Suite'' for string orchestra (1952) * ''A Pastoral Fantasy'' (1936–37) * Piano Concerto 'Airmail' (1939) * Piano Concerto * ''Walking and Dream Tide'' for string orchestra (or cello and piano)

Opera

*''Second Chance'', premiered at Bath in 1955, libretto Swain and M. Rodd * ''The Shadowy Waters'' (operatic setting, based on

) * ''The Spell'' (incomplete)

Piano

* ''The Croon of the Sea'' (1920) * ''Crossbow Castle'' (suite, four pieces) * ''An English Idyll'' (1942) * ''Humoresque'' * ''Mountain Ash'' (1931) * ''Prelude and Toccata'' (1955) * ''The Red Flower'' *Scherzo for three pianos *''Sonata Saga'' in F minor (1924, rev. 1929 and 1930) * Sonata No. 1 in A minor, ''The Skerries'' (1936–37, rev. 1945) * Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor (1950) *Sonatina * ''Two South Africa Impressions'': 'Mimosa' and 'The Lonely Dove' * ''Spring Mood'' * ''Waltz Charming'' *''The Windmill''

Songs

* ''April'' (text: A. E. Coppard) *''Blessing'' (text: Austin Clarke) * ''The Chevalier's Lament'' (text:

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

) *''Experience'' (Chinese text: translated

Arthur Waley Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were ...

) *''The Green Lad From Donegal'' * ''The Indwelling'', song cycle for voices, strings, piano and drum (fp. 1961)"Young Singers' Spirit of Man", ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 7 June 1961, p. 17 *''The Lark on Portsdown Hill'' (text: composer) * ''Sweet Content'' (text: Robert Greene) * ''Sympathy'' (text:

Emily Brontë Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English writer best known for her 1847 novel, ''Wuthering Heights''. She also co-authored a book of poetry with her sisters Charlotte Brontë, Charlotte and Anne Bront� ...

) * ''Three Sonnets by Shakespeare'' (1936) (with non-vocal prelude, ''Summer Rhapsody'') *''Winter Field'' * over 100 songs, including settings of

Bridges A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somet ...

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Choral

* ''Bells of Heaven'' (Christmas carol, text: Mary Brandon) *''Breathe on Me, Breath of God'', anthem * ''Cantata In Memoriam'' *''A Gaelic Prayer'', anthem * ''Now Rest We All Content'' (wedding anthem, text: Mary Brandon) * ''Psalm 150'' (1973) * ''Rejoice in the Lord'' (1961) * ''Unseen Heralds'' (text: Mary Brandon)

References

External links

"Portrait of Freda Swain, 1968"
by Ena Limbeek, artware fineart
"Freda Swain: Piano Music, Volume One"
Timon Altwegg (piano) Toccata Classics (2022)
"Freda Swain: ''Summer Rhapsody, Cello Sonata, Piano Quartet''"

CDLX7412 (2024) * , performed by Damin Spritzer in 2023 {{DEFAULTSORT:Swain, Freda 1902 births 1985 deaths 20th-century British pianists 20th-century British classical composers 20th-century English women musicians 20th-century British women composers Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music British music educators Musicians from Portsmouth British women classical composers British women music educators