Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks (29 December 191225 June 1990) was an Australian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

and music critic.

Biography

Peggy Glanville Hicks, born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

, first studied composition with Fritz Hart at the Albert Street Conservatorium in Melbourne. There she also studied the piano under Waldemar Seidel. She spent the years from 1932 to 1936 as a student at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music 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 perform ...

in London, where she studied piano with

Arthur Benjamin Arthur Leslie Benjamin (18 September 1893, in Sydney – 10 April 1960, in London) was an Australian composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. He is best known as the composer of '' Jamaican Rumba'' (1938) and of the '' Storm Clouds Cantata'' ...

, conducting with

Constant Lambert Leonard Constant Lambert (23 August 190521 August 1951) was a British composer, conductor, and author. He was the founder and music director of the Royal Ballet, and (alongside Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton) he was a major figure in th ...

and Malcolm Sargent, and composition with

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

. (She later asserted that the idea that opens Vaughan Williams' 4th Symphony was taken from her Sinfonietta for Small Orchestra (1935), and it reappears in her 1953

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

The Transposed Heads ''The Transposed Heads'' (german: Die vertauschten Köpfe) is a novella by Thomas Mann. It was written in 1940 and published later that year by Bermann-Fischer. The English translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter was published in 1941 by Alfred A. Knopf ...

''). Her teachers also included Egon Wellesz, in Vienna, and

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

, in Paris. She was the first Australian composer whose work, her Choral Suite, was performed at an International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Festival (1938). From 1949 to 1955 she served as a critic for the ''

New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the '' New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...

'', succeeding

Paul Bowles Paul Frederic Bowles (; December 30, 1910November 18, 1999) was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his ...

, working under

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclass ...

. At the same time she continued composing and was musical director at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

in New York. She was granted U.S. citizenship in 1949. After leaving America, she lived in Greece from 1957 to 1975. In the United States she asked George Antheil to revise his '' Ballet Mécanique'' for a modern percussion ensemble for a concert she helped to organize. In 1966, after years of failing eyesight, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, which was surgically removed, and she regained her sight. However, a result of this operation was her loss of a sense of smell. She died in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

in 1990. She had returned to Australia at the encouragement of James Murdoch and others. Murdoch also wrote her biography. Her will established the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers' House in her home in Paddington, Sydney, as a residency for Australian and overseas composers. The organisation New Music Network established the

Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address The Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address is an annual forum for ideas relating to the creation and performance of Australian music. It was named for the Australian composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks. From 1999 until 2018 the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address was ...

in her honour in 1999.

Music

Her instrumental works include the ''Sinfonia da Pacifica'' (in three short movements, begun in 1952 on a boat traveling from New Orleans back to her home in Australia, and premiered in Melbourne the following year); the ''Etruscan Concerto'' for piano and orchestra; ''Concerto romantico'' for viola and orchestra; and the Sonata for Harp, premiered by

Nicanor Zabaleta Nicanor Zabaleta (January 7, 1907 – April 1, 1993) was a Spanish harpist. Zabaleta was born in San Sebastián, Spain, on January 7, 1907. In 1914 his father, an amateur musician, bought him a harp in an antique shop. He soon began taking ...

in 1953; performed by Marshall McGuire on the CD ''Awakening'', the work was named the Most Performed Contemporary Classical Composition at the APRA Music Awards of 1996. Her best known operas are ''

'' and ''

Nausicaa Nausicaa (; grc, Ναυσικάα, Nausikáa, or , ) also spelled Nausicaä or Nausikaa, is a character in Homer's ''Odyssey''. She is the daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete of Phaeacia. Her name means "burner of ships" ( 'ship'; 'to b ...

''. ''The Transposed Heads'' is in six scenes with a

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major li ...

by the composer after

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

, and was premiered in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, on 3 April 1954. ''Nausicaa'' was composed in 1959–60 and premiered in Athens in 1961. The libretto is from the novel ''Homer's Daughter'' by

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celt ...

and supports the theory that ''The Odyssey'', attributed to Homer, is actually a story told by women. Glanville-Hicks visited Graves on Majorca in 1956 and worked with his friend Alastair Reid to complete the libretto. The premiere was a major event in the operatic calendar, and was considered a triumph for Glanville-Hicks, but the opera has never been re-staged. Her last opera, ''Sappho'', was composed in 1963 for the

San Francisco Opera San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when h ...

, with hopes that

Maria Callas Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...

would sing the title role. However, the company rejected the work and it has never been produced. This opera was recorded in 2012 by Jennifer Condon conducting the

Gulbenkian Orchestra The Gulbenkian Orchestra ( pt, Orquestra Gulbenkian) is a Portuguese symphony orchestra based in Lisbon. The orchestra primarily gives concerts at the ''Grande Auditório'' (Grand Auditorium) of the Gulbenkian Foundation. The orchestra, which was f ...

and with

Deborah Polaski Deborah Polaski (born May 26, 1949, in Richland Center, Wisconsin) is an American opera and concert singer ( soprano). She has specialized in dramatic soprano roles and also sings mezzo-soprano roles occasionally. Biography After being educa ...

in the title role.

Private life

She was married to British composer Stanley Bate, who was

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

, from 1938 to 1949, when they divorced. She married journalist Rafael da Costa in 1952; the couple divorced the following year. She was also involved with

Mario Monteforte Toledo Mario Monteforte Toledo (September 15, 1911 – September 4, 2003) was a Guatemalan writer, dramatist, and politician. Born in Guatemala City, he played important roles in the governments of both Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz, inc ...

and

Theodore Thomson Flynn Theodore Thomson Flynn (11 October 1883 – 23 October 1968) was an Australian zoologist and marine biologist and a professor in both Tasmania and the United Kingdom. He was the father of the actor Errol Flynn. Biography Theodore Thomson Fl ...

. Like Bate, many of the men with whom Glanville-Hicks was close were gay; she had few intimate female friends, and often dressed in male attire. She was an intimate friend of the expatriate U.S. writer and composer

, and they remained very close all their lives, although their relationship was mainly epistolary after his move to Morocco in 1947.

Works

*''Caedmon'', opera (1933) *''Concertino da camera'' (1946) *''Letters from Morocco'', for tenor and small orchestra (1952) *''Sinfonia da Pacifica'' (1952–1953)''Pioneers of a Century'', BBC Concert Orchestra performance, 8 March 2021
/ref> *'' The Transposed Heads. A Legend of India'', opera after the novel '' Die vertauschten Köpfe'' by

(1953) *''Three Gymnopedies'', for oboe, celeste, harp, strings (1953)Deborah Hayes
"Glanville-Hicks, Peggy."

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...

. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 October 2017. *''Etruscan Concerto'', for piano and chamber orchestra (1956) *''Concerto Romantico'', for viola and chamber orchestra (1956) *''The Glittering Gate'', opera (1957) *''The Masque of the Wild Man'', ballet (1958) *''Pelude for a Pensive Pupil'', for piano (1958) *''Nausicaa'', opera (1961) *''Sappho'', opera, (1963), produced 2012. *''Saul and the Witch of Endor'', television ballet (1964) *''Tragic Celebration (Jephtha's Daughter)'', ballet (1966)

References

Sources *

External links