#ClassicsaDay #PrideMonth Week 3, 2025
By Ralph Graves
The #ClassicsaDay team celebrates Pride Month this June. The wide spectrum of sexual identities is now common knowledge. But there have always been non-cis people. Some were able to live openly, others had to hide their orientation to live.
For the challenge, I included as many pre-20th-century composers as possible. Here are my posts for the third week of #PrideWeek.
06/16/25 Siegfried Wagner (1869-1930): Gluck
Siegfried was the son of Richard Wagner. On a long sea voyage to Asia, he became intimate with composer Clement Harris. The tone poem Gluck was dedicated to Harris’s memory.
06/17/25 Walter Arlen (1920-2023): Sonnet
Jewish composer Arlen fled the Nazis in 1939, settling in America. Although he composed throughout his life, most of his works were written after he retired in 1993. Arlen’s works are mainly vocal and chamber music.
6/18/25 Ruth Anderson (1928-2019): SUM (State of the Union Message)
Anderson studied with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger. She was a pioneer in electronic music and also composed for traditional ensembles.
06/19/25 Samuel Barber (1910-1981): A Hand of Bridge
Barber was always interested in vocal music, as was his partner Gian Carlo Menotti. “A Hand of Bridge” depicts the inner thoughts of four bridge players as they play a round. Menoti wrote the libretto.
06/20/25 Jean Barraqué (1928-1973): Sequence for voice, percussion, and chamber ensemble
Barraqué was a fastidious composer who constantly revised his works. His catalog only contains about 30 completed pieces. He was known for his innovative use of serialism, which moved beyond the Schoenberg model.
