Geraldine Mucha facts for kids

Geraldine Thomson Mucha (born July 5, 1917 – died October 12, 2012) was a talented Scottish composer.

She was born in London and studied music at the Royal Academy of Music. In 1942, she married Jiří Mucha, a Czech writer and the son of the famous painter Alphonse Mucha. In 1945, Geraldine moved to Prague, where she lived for most of the next sixty years.

Early Life and Music Studies

Geraldine Mucha was born in London on July 5, 1917. She was the only child of Marcus Thomson from Glasgow and Maisie Evans from New Zealand. Her father was a successful baritone singer and later taught singing at the Royal Academy of Music. Her mother was also a musician who performed in famous musicals and operas.

Geraldine showed a love for music from a very young age. Her father was amazed by how she could make up music on the piano. He taught her to read and write music even before she started school.

Between 1929 and 1934, Geraldine went to Frognall School in North London. Many actors and musicians sent their daughters there. At school, she became friends with Maeve Bax, whose father was the well-known composer Arnold Bax. He noticed Geraldine's musical talent. He even played her early pieces and gave her advice. She also learned about harmony from her father's friend, the composer Benjamin Dale. Geraldine loved going to concerts and the opera with her mother. She also developed a great passion for ballet.

In 1935, Geraldine became a student at the Royal Academy of Music. She won several scholarships there. Her main focus was piano, and her second was composition. She continued to learn from Benjamin Dale and also studied with William Alwyn, Alan Bush, and Harry Farjeon.

While she was a student, Geraldine composed a ballet called Nausicaa. It was performed for two pianos at a student concert. Constant Lambert, who directed the music for the Sadler's Wells Ballet, was impressed by her music. In her last year, her piano quartet, Halingdal, was performed at the famous Wigmore Hall in London. This piece was later published by Boosey & Hawkes.

Geraldine graduated from the Royal Academy in the summer of 1943.

Marriage and Life in Prague

In 1941, Geraldine met the young Czech writer Jiří Mucha at a party. They got married in London in 1942. While Jiří was away working as a war reporter, Geraldine worked as a telephone operator. She also created music arrangements for the BBC.

Soon after World War II ended in Europe, Geraldine and Jiří moved to Prague. This city became their main home for the rest of their lives. In Prague, Geraldine helped to start the early Prague Spring music festivals. Their only child, John, was born in 1948.

In 1950, Jiří was arrested by the Communist government. He was put in prison and was not released until 1953. During this difficult time, Geraldine lived on a small farm in the Czech countryside. She also played the organ at the village church. After Jiří was released, he slowly began writing again. Geraldine sometimes worked as a music editor for a publishing company called Melantrich. She became a member of the Czechoslovak Composers Union. Her music was performed by professional orchestras and even recorded.

In the early 1960s, people around the world became very interested in the Art Nouveau designs of Jiří's father, Alphonse Mucha. To make it easier to show his art outside of the Iron Curtain (the border between Communist and non-Communist countries), Geraldine moved back to Scotland. This way, when Jiří was allowed to visit her, they could travel the world together. They supervised the growing number of art exhibitions.

Jiří Mucha passed away in 1991, just after the communist government in Czechoslovakia fell. Geraldine then returned to Prague for the rest of her life. However, she continued to spend every summer at her house in Scotland, near Aberdeen.

With her son John and the new Mucha Foundation, Geraldine continued to promote her father-in-law's artistic legacy. She also kept writing music until the very end of her life. In her later years, her chamber music became popular again, especially among musicians in Prague. New pieces were ordered and performed. Sadly, her orchestral works were mostly forgotten.

Geraldine Mucha died at her home in Prague on October 12, 2012. Just two weeks before, she had attended a concert of her music at the Prague Conservatory of Music. The concert celebrated her 95th birthday.

She is buried with her husband in Prague's Vyšehrad Cemetery.

Her Music Style

Geraldine was lucky to be encouraged as a composer from a very young age. Before she even started her formal studies, she had private lessons with Benjamin Dale. Her teenage compositions were also looked over by Arnold Bax, a famous British composer. So, she was already familiar with the late Romantic style of these important musicians.

At the Royal Academy of Music, she learned from two notable young composers, Alwyn and Bush. Their more modern, post-romantic style certainly influenced Geraldine's own way of writing. But she deeply loved Scottish folk music and often used it in her pieces. This kept her closer to the style of older composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams or Béla Bartók, whom she greatly admired. Igor Stravinsky was another "modern" composer whose music fascinated her. She was always interested in how composers built and arranged their musical works.

Geraldine first heard Czech music before World War II. She heard the young musical genius Vítězslava Kaprálová conducting her own music in London. (Kapralová later became Jiří Mucha's first wife, but she died young in 1940.) Geraldine also heard pieces by Leoš Janáček and Bohuslav Martinů during wartime performances. These were conducted by the Czech musician Vilém Tauský.

When she arrived in Prague, Geraldine hoped to take lessons with Vítězslav Novák, a respected composer with a late-Romantic style. This did not happen. However, in her own music, Geraldine continued to mix her personal romantic feelings with a more modern, mid-20th-century sound. In this way, she was similar to her Czech composer friends Petr Eben and Luboš Fišer.

Recordings

Today, there are two recordings of Geraldine Mucha's music. One features her orchestral works, including Tempest Overture, Macbeth Suite, Songs of John Webster, Piano Concerto, and Sixteen Variations on an Old Scottish Song. The other recording focuses on her chamber music, such as String Quartets 1 and 2, Variations on an Old Scottish Song, Naše cesta, For Erika, Wind Quintet, and Epitaph (In Memory of Jiří Mucha).

Selected Works

Here are some of Geraldine Mucha's compositions:

• Nausica, ballet, 1942
• Macbeth, ballet, 1965
• Fantasy, 1946
• Pictures from Sumava symphonic suite, 1952
• Piano Concerto, 1960
• Carmina Orcadiana, 1960?
• The Tempest overture for orchestra, 1964
• String quartets, 1941, 1962 (discarded), 1988
• Parting and Teasing, for piano 1942
• Sonatina for Viola, 1945
• Sonatas for violin and piano, 1947, 1961
• Piano pieces for children, 1953
• 16 Variations on a Scottish Folksong, for piano 1957
• Sea Scenes, for violin and piano 1958
• Nonet, 1959, 1982
• Sonnets from Shakespeare for speaker, flute, and harp, 1961
• Song of Songs for speaker, flute, and harp, 1963
• Serenade for wind quintet, 1964
• Intermezzo for English horn and strings, 1988
• Music for harp and piano, 1990
• Epitaph (in memory of Jiri Mucha), for string quintet and oboe, 1991
• Piano Trio, 1995
• Collection of Czech and Slovak songs for baritone and piano, 1943
• Folk Lullabies, 1952
• Two Choruses for women's voices, 1956–1958
• Incantation for baritone and orchestra on lyrics by Byron, 1960
• En Los Pinares de Jucar for soprano, oboe d'amore and strings, 1975
• 3 Jersey Folksongs, for soprano, baritone, and piano, 1975
• 3 Winter Songs for soprano, baritone, and piano, 1975
• John Webster Songs for soprano and orchestra (also a version for oboe d'amore, harpsichord, and for piano, 1975–1988
• 5 canciones de Antonio Machado for soprano and 7 solo instruments, 1980s
• Sonnets of Hawthornden for soprano, oboe, and string quintet, 1990
• Epitaph for oboe and string quintet, 1991