Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912–1990) was an Australian composer, born in Melbourne, whose career carried her through London, New York and Greece. She wrote operas, chamber music, song cycles and a concise Sonata for Harp that remains widely played.
Her music favours clear melody and rhythm over dense harmony. Song cycles such as Profiles from China, the Housman set Mimic Heaven, Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and the orchestral Letters from Morocco sit beside chamber scores including the neo-classical Concertino da camera.
The harp sonata, with its Saeta, Pastorale and Rondo, is a staple of Australian recital programmes. Operas including The Transposed Heads and Nausicaa grew from her years abroad and her long interest in myth and non-Western melody.
She came home in the 1970s. Her will left her Paddington house as a residency for young Australian composers.
Compositions by Peggy Glanville-Hicks appear on
Homegrown
Themes of nature, motherhood, and a profound spiritual connection to place pervade Homegrown — art song by Australian women composers, performed by soprano Rebecca Cassidy and pianist Alex Raineri.
Fable
This solo harp collection spans sixty-six years of original Australian composition. Jacinta Dennett performs works by Australian women composers, showing the instrument’s distinctive colour, range and expressive force.
Repose
Beautiful lullabies and cradle songs by Australian composers from 1890–1999. Soprano Linda Thompson and pianist Deviani Segal present world premiere recordings drawn from a century of Australian cradle song.