Ruth Gipps: Anti-Modernism, Nationalism and Difference in English Music

When Ruth Gipps died in 1999, her legacy was as one of Britain's most prolific female composers. Gipps's talents were acknowledged but not always respected and she was a figure often dogged by controversy. In the first major review of her life and work the importance of Ruth Gipps is established in two ways: first, as a pioneering woman composer and conductor whose work challenged prevailing attitudes in the era directly after the war and second, as a composer whose musical philosophy was often at odds with mainstream thinking. Although she was branded a reactionary, her position reveals a number of important counter currents in English musical life in the twentieth century.

Jill Halstead is Senior Lecturer in the Music Department, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK.