Women And The Piano – Susan Tomes

‘During my whole pianistic education, no teacher ever suggested I learn a piece by a female composer’

So writes pianist and author Susan Tomes, who is setting out to redress the historical neglect of women composers and pianists. Her new album, covering 250 years of piano history, gives a clear voice to at least seven virtually unknown names. Their extraordinary individual stories are revealed in Tomes’s thoughtful and deeply researched notes, allowing us to glimpse—often for the first time—their profound talents.

Tomes’s solo debut on Hyperion forms a counterpart to her book ‘Women and the Piano’ (Yale University Press, 2024), which documents the history, music and lives of female pianists across the years. Here Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chaminade feature alongside US master Amy Beach. But surprises are aplenty, including a Sonata in A major by Haydn’s earliest piano pupil Marianne Martínez, and a ‘Caprice’ by Polish virtuoso Maria Szymanowska, who courageously toured Europe and was appointed first-ever pianist to the Tsarina’s St Petersburg court. An intoxicating ‘Romance’ by Sophie Menter (Liszt’s favourite pupil, whom he referred to as ‘the piano itself’) is followed by an 1869 work by Venezuelan Teresa Carreño, whose ‘Un bal en rêve’ appears to contain a reference to the tune of Happy Birthday, seemingly 30 years before its publication!

The startling finale belongs to Raie da Costa, among the most famous light-music pianists of the age, whose short recording career encompassed no fewer than 100 albums for HMV Parlophone before her untimely death in 1934. Every track offers an enlightening surprise from across the piano world: Tomes has deliberately selected shorter works to enable us to discover as many new voices as possible.

This deeply researched album forms part of Tomes’s lifelong ambition to open up classical music to all listeners: for 17 years she toured with chamber music ensemble Domus, winning not only a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for her pioneering work but also three Gramophone Awards.