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Drawing the Landscape

Donald Macleod and Leah Broad consider how much of an influence ideas about the English landscape may have had on Doreen Carwithen's orchestral music.

Donald Macleod and Leah Broad consider how much of an influence ideas about the English landscape may have had on Doreen Carwithen's orchestral music.

Doreen Carwithen is one of only a handful of female British composers who worked in the film industry in the 1940s and 1950s. Dramas, mysteries, horror flicks, documentaries, the thirty-plus films she scored form a substantial part of her musical legacy.

Carwithen first came to critical attention in the concert hall, with the catchily titled ODTAA, One damn thing after another, in 1947. Predictably, newspaper headlines made much of her gender and her youth. She was just 24. It seemed as if a bright future lay ahead, yet, at the beginning of the 1960s, Carwithen would stop writing music, a situation which perhaps in part explains why her music dropped off the radar for many years.

To mark the centenary of her birth, Donald Macleod is joined by Leah Broad, whose biography of Carwithen is due to be published in 2023. Together they bring to light the little-known yet fascinating story of this 20th-century British composer.

By the 1950s, the pressures of maintaining a long-standing affair with the composer William Alwyn were taking a toll on Carwithen's health. She was also finding it difficult to get performances of her work.

Suffolk Suite
III: Suffolk Morris (excerpt)
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Bishop Rock
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

String Quartet no 1
II: Lento
Tippett Quartet

Four Piano Preludes
Hiroaki Takenouchi, piano

Suffolk suite
I: Prelude. Moderato
II: Orford Ness Allegretto grazioso
III: Morris. Ritmico
IV: Framlingham Castle. Alla marcia
London Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox, conductor

Producer: Johannah Smith

59 minutes

Music Played

  • Doreen Carwithen

    Bishop Rock

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Richard Hickox.
    • Chandos : CHAN10365X.
    • Chandos.
    • 5.
  • Doreen Carwithen

    String Quartet No 1 (2nd mvt)

    Ensemble: Tippett Quartet.
    • Somm : SOMMCD0194.
    • Somm.
    • 5.
  • Doreen Carwithen

    Four Piano Preludes

    Performer: Hiroaki Takenouchi.
  • Doreen Carwithen

    Suffolk Suite

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Richard Hickox.
    • Chandos : CHAN10365X.
    • Chandos.
    • 6.

Broadcast

  • Wed 23 Nov 2022 12:00

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