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 and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

, 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 stuff ...

at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

,Blom, Eric, revised Foreman, Lewis. 'Swain, Freda (Mary)' in ''Grove Music Online'', 2001
/ref> 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 Chinnor Hill is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Chinnor in Oxfordshire. It is managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust. This hill has species-rich calcareous grassland, juniper scrub, ...

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) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish litera ...

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 ...

at the Queen's Hall in January 1925. The solo Violin Sonata was premiered by May Harrison at the Wigmore Hall 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. 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 Toccata Classics is an independent British classic music label founded in 2005. The founder of Toccata Classics is Martin Anderson, a music journalist. The label was founded primarily to promote unrecorded works by lesser-known composers, inc ...

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 Quintet (1938) *''The Sea'' for piano quartet (1938) * 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 * ''By the Loch'' for cello and piano (1960) *Cello Sonata in C *''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 * ''Laburnum Tree'' for clarinet and piano (1960) * ''Pipe Tunes'' for clarinet and piano * ''Rhapsody'' for clarinet and piano (for

Frederick Thurston Frederick John Thurston (21 September 1901 – 12 December 1953) was an English clarinettist. Career From the age of 7 he was taught by his father and he won an open scholarship to the Royal College of Music, becoming a pupil of Charles Drap ...

) *Sonata for violin in C minor *Sonata for violin in B minor, ''The River'' *Sonata for violin in G minor (No 4?) (1947) *''Song at Evening'' for viola and piano (1958) * ''Summer Rhapsody No 1'' for viola and piano (performed 1936) * ''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'' (1936-7) * 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'' (1936-7, 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 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

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

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) *''The Green Lad From Donegal'' * ''The Indwelling'', song cycle for voices, strings, piano and drum (fp. 1961)'Young Singers' Spirit of Man', ''Daily Telegraph'', 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 novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poet ...

) *''Winter Field'' * over 100 songs, including settings of

Bridges A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whic ...

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...

and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 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 nation ...

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)

External links

Portrait of Freda Swain, by Ena Limbeek

Freda Swain: Piano Music, Volume One, Toccata Classics

''Song at Evening'', Helen Callus and Philip Bush

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swain, Freda 1902 births 1985 deaths 20th-century British composers 20th-century British pianists 20th-century classical composers 20th-century English women musicians 20th-century women composers Academics of the Royal Academy of Music Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music British classical composers British music educators Musicians from Portsmouth British women classical composers British women music educators