#ClassicsaDay #WomensHistoryMonth Week 4, 2025
By Ralph Graves
March is Women’s History Month. And it’s a great opportunity for Classics a Day to focus on the contributions of women to classical music.
Women composers are often unjustly overlooked by history. The problem is seldom the quality of their work — just the worker’s gender. The challenge in March is to post examples of music by women composers. There’s a millennium of music to choose from. For me, the challenge was what to leave out. Here are my posts for the fourth and final week of #WomensHistoryMonth.
03/24/25 Dora Pejačevič (1885-1923) Piano quartet in D minor, Op 25
Pejacevic was one of Croatia’s most important composers and a talented pianist. Her piano quintet was written in 1908, when she was only 23.
03/25/25 Florence Price (1887-1953): Piano concerto in One Movement
Price composed her concerto in 1934 and premiered it at the Chicago Musical College. The score was considered lost until it was found in her former residence in 2009.
03/26/25 Clara Schumann (1819-1896) Drei Romanzen, Op. 21
Clara Schumann composed relatively few compositions. Her Three Romances was one of her last works, written in 1853. At the time, she was 34, a mother of 7, and concertizing throughout Europe.
03/27/25 María Teresa Prieto (1896-1982): Cuadros de la Naturaleza, Diptico para Orquesta 1965
Prieto was a Spanish composer who spent most of her life in Mexico. Her music blended 12-tone technique with Mexican traditional music.
03/28/25 Louise Farrenc (1804–1875): Trio for flute, cello, and piano, Op. 45
Farrenc was a piano virtuoso and composer. In her lifetime, she was one of the most famous and respected musicians in Paris.
Next Month:
