Phyllis Gummer

Phyllis Mary Gummer (12 March 1919 – 2005) was a Canadian composer of classical music.

Life

Phyllis Gummer was born in Kingston, Ontario, and studied at Queen's University, where her father was assistant professor of mathematics. In 1940 during her studies at Queen's, her "Piano sonata" and the song "Requiescat" received first prize in an annual composition competition for Canadian composers under 22, held by the Canadian Performing Rights Society (now called the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada).[1] The prize included a scholarship for study at the Toronto Conservatory (now called The Royal Conservatory of Music).

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Queen's, she studied composition under Healy Willan and violin under Harold Sumberg at the Toronto Conservatory. During her time at the Toronto Conservatory she was in a circle of composers:

Beside John Weinzweig and Louis Applebaum the circle of communication included Godfrey Ridout, Barbara Pentland, Leonard Basham, Phyllis Gummer, and Eldon Rathburn.[2]

She also performed in local concerts, on violin, piano, viola and organ. In 1942 she won a fellowship in composition at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.[3]

Gummer's early compositions received attention in the early 1940s. Beside the CPRS prize in 1940, her works were performed at several local concerts. A reviewer in the Canadian Review of Music and Arts wrote about a concert on 28 February 1942 at the Conservatory Hall in Toronto:

I am inclined to think that one work above the others fulfilled more completely every demand that one might make of a composition, and that was the song "The journey". Here Christina Rossetti's words were wedded most exquisitely to a fine melodic line of grace and loveliness in its own right, and these were bound the more indissolubly by the happiest of accompaniments. In all her works Miss Gummer showed herself to be possessed of real musically creative thought, and capable of producing a fine harmonic texture of great delicacy an strength.[4]

In 1944, Phyllis Gummer was a staff member of the National Film Board of Canada and part of a group of composers:

The music and sound team that Louis [Applebaum] led included Maurice Blackburn, Eldon Rathburn, Phyllis Gummer and Robert Fleming - splendid collection of fine composers who were to be his lifetime friends.[5]

There is little known about the activities of Phyllis Gummer after that time, but she remained connected to the classical music scene.[6]

The archive of musical manuscripts by Phyllis Gummer is preserved by Tobias Broeker, a private researcher in Stuttgart (Germany).[7]

Compositions

Piano works
  • Sonata for piano (1937) (recently re-discovered by Elaine Keillor and performed at the Doors Open for Music at Southminster in Ottawa on 15 May 2019[8])
  • Nine bagatelles for piano op.1 (1937)
  • March for piano (1938)
  • Organ prelude on "O love, who formedst me to wear", for organ (1939)
  • Organ prelude on "Hail the day that sees him rise", for organ (1939)
  • Prelude for piano (1941)
  • Night song, for piano (1941)
  • Sonatina for piano (1942)

Duo works
  • Scherzo for violin and piano (1937)
  • Fantasy for clarinet and piano (1939)
  • Romance for clarinet and piano (1939)
  • 3 Bagatelles, for flute and piano in A (1939)
  • Allegro for violin and piano(1940)
  • Flute sonata for flute and piano
  • Sonata for cello and piano
  • Sonata for violin and piano
  • Air and variations for flute and piano

Trio works
  • Piano trio for piano, violin and cello (also titled Fantasy trio) (1940, rev. 1960)
  • Suite for string trio, for violin, viola and cello (1942)
  • Exercise for 3 cellos
  • Trio for flute, violin and viola

Quartet works
  • Scherzo for string quartet (1939)
  • Romance for string quartet (1939)
  • String quartet No.1 (1941)
  • A bagatelle for string quartet (1941)
  • Piece for string quartet (1956)
  • String quartet in E minor (1962)
  • 4 bagatelles for string quartet
  • String quartet No.2
  • String quartet No.4

Vocal

Numerous songs among them:

  • Requiescat, for voice and piano (words by Oscar Wilde) (1937, CAPAC prize 1940)
  • The journey, for voice and piano (words by Christina Rossetti) (1938)
  • works for chorus
  • several motets

Film music
  • "Early start", film music (1945)
  • "Soil for tomorrow", film music (1945)
gollark: I already DID that yesterday.
gollark: And YOU are manually breathing.
gollark: So your shooting does nothing whatsoever.
gollark: They produce intense safety fields via crustaceomagnetic ferrous induction.
gollark: We also have crustaceoformic cyclotrons in low Earth orbit to ensure safety.

References
  1. "Phyllis Gummer Wins Scholarship". The Ottawa Journal. 5 April 1940. p. 2. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  2. Cherney, Brian (2011): Weinzweig - Essays on his life and music, page 9. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-1-55458-321-8
  3. "New Accompanist For Choral Union". The Ottawa Journal. 18 November 1944. p. 16. Retrieved 5 March 2017.
  4. Quoted in The Queen's Review, Volume 16, 1942, No.4, page 105. Kingston, Ont: The General Alumni Association of Queen's University"
  5. Pitman, Walter (2002): Louis Applebaum - a passion for culture, page 47. Toronto: Dundurn Group. ISBN 1-55002-398-5
  6. Correspondence in 1980 between Phyllis Gummer and Alexander Brott about concerts, Alexander Brott Archive at the Canadian National Library
  7. https://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/g-l/gummer-phyllis/
  8. https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/6c1345_0787b3361c6a49fcb25202fc9e44da71.pdf
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