The lives,loves,adventures and trailblazing musical careers of four extraordinary women from a stunning debut biographer.
Ethel Smyth (b.1858): Famed for her operas,this trailblazing queer Victorian composer was a larger-than-life socialite,intrepid traveller and committed Suffragette.
Rebecca Clarke (b.1886): This talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty was one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra,later celebrated for her modernist experimentation.
Dorothy Howell (b.1898): A prodigy who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms,her reputation as the'English Strauss'never dented her modesty; on retirement,she tended Elgar's grave alone.
Doreen Carwithen (b.1922): One of Britain's first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth II's coronation film,her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition tutor
. In their time,these women were celebrities. They composed some of the century's most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today,they are ghostly presences,surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar,Vaughan Williams and Britten - until now. Leah Broad's magnificent group biography resurrects these forgotten voices,recounting lives of rebellion,heartbreak and ambition,and celebrating their musical masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over two World Wars,Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.
Publisher: Faber & FaberISBN: 9780571366101Number of pages: 480Weight: 713 gDimensions: 234 x 153 x 34 mmEdition: Main
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