Grace Williams facts for kids

Grace Williams, a famous Welsh composer.

Grace Mary Williams (born February 19, 1906 – died February 10, 1977) was a very important Welsh composer. Many people consider her to be Wales's most famous female composer. She was also the first British woman to write music for a full-length movie!

Early Life and Music

Grace Williams was born in a town called Barry in Wales. Her parents, William and Rose, were both teachers. Her father was also a talented musician.

Grace started playing music when she was young. She learned the piano and violin. She often played piano with her father and brother, and she also played for her father's choir.

When she was at school, she became very interested in writing her own music. Her music teacher, Miss Rhyda Jones, helped her a lot. In 1923, Grace won a special scholarship. This allowed her to study music at Cardiff University. There, she learned from Professor David Evans.

Later, in 1926, she went to study at the Royal College of Music in London. She had famous teachers like Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Other talented female composers also studied with Vaughan Williams at the same time.

In 1930, Grace won another scholarship. She decided to travel to Vienna, Austria, to study with a composer named Egon Wellesz. She stayed there until 1931.

Her Career

Teaching and War Years

After her studies, Grace Williams taught music in London starting in 1932. She taught at Camden Girls' School and Southlands College.

During World War II, her students were moved to a safer place. While she was there, Grace wrote some of her first important pieces. These included a work for piano and orchestra called Sinfonia Concertante. She also wrote her First Symphony.

One of her most loved pieces, Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (written in 1940), also came from this time. This music uses well-known Welsh children's songs. Another important work was Sea Sketches (1944), written for string orchestra. This music sounds just like the sea, showing its many different moods.

In 1945, Grace moved back to her hometown of Barry. She stayed there for the rest of her life. She spent most of her time writing music.

Film Music and Opera

In 1949, Grace Williams made history. She became the first British woman to write the music for a feature film. The movie was called Blue Scar.

Later, in 1960–61, she wrote her only opera, The Parlour. An opera is a play where the story is told mostly through singing. Her opera was first performed in 1966.

In 1967, she was offered a special honor called the OBE for her amazing work in music. However, she decided to turn it down.

Famous Musical Works

Grace Williams's most popular piece is Penillion. She wrote it in 1955 for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. She used similar musical ideas in her Trumpet Concerto in 1963.

Even though Wales is famous for its choirs, Grace Williams mostly wrote music for orchestras and instruments. Her piece Ballads for Orchestra (1968) was written for the National Eisteddfod of Wales, a big Welsh festival held in her hometown that year. This music sounds very colorful and grand, like something from a medieval court.

Some of her best vocal pieces include Ave Maris Stella (1973). This is a Latin hymn for singers without instruments. Another great work is Six Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1958). This piece is for a contralto singer and a string sextet (six string instruments). Her music perfectly matches the rhythm of the poems. These are some of her most beautiful works. The gentle, flowing melodies in Ave Maris Stella often remind listeners of the ocean, which was a common theme in her music.

She also set some Welsh-language texts to music. One example is Saunders Lewis's carol Rhosyn Duw (1955). She later used this in her larger choral work, Missa Cambrensis (1971).

Her last completed works were written in 1975. They were settings of poems by Kipling and Beddoes for a unique group of instruments: singers, harp, and two horns. The very last music she wrote was actually a revision of her Second Symphony, which she first composed in 1956.

Her Legacy

In August 2006, the year she would have turned 100, BBC Radio 3 featured Grace Williams as their "Composer of the Week." This led to many of her works being performed again, some for the first time in a long while. These included her Violin Concerto (1950) and her Sinfonia Concertante (1941).

In March 2016, two of her large-scale works were performed for the first time in modern times. These were Missa Cambrensis (1971) and her orchestral suite Four Illustrations for the Legend of Rhiannon (1939–40).

Recordings of Her Music

Only a few of Grace Williams's works have been recorded. Her Second Symphony, Penillion, Sea Sketches, and Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes have been released on albums. Several of her choral works, including Ave Maris Stella, were also recorded. Ballads for Orchestra was recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, an album of her chamber music was released, played by violinist Madeleine Mitchell and the London Chamber Ensemble.

Main Works

• Two Psalms for contralto, harp and strings (1927)
• Phantasy Quintet for piano and string quartet (1928)
• Hen Walia, Overture for orchestra (1930)
• Sonata for violin and piano (1930)
• Sextet for oboe, trumpet, violin, viola, cello and piano (c. 1931)
• Sonatina for flute and piano (1931)
• Suite for orchestra (1932)
• Concert Overture (c. 1932)
• Movement for Trumpet and chamber orchestra (1932)
• Suite for nine instruments (flute, clarinet, trumpet, piano, two violins, viola, cello and double bass) (c. 1934)
• Theseus and Ariadne, ballet (1935)
• Elegy for String orchestra (1936)
• Four Illustrations for the Legend of Rhiannon, for orchestra (1939)
• Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes, for orchestra (1940)
• Sinfonia Concertante for piano and orchestra (1941)
• Symphony No. 1 (1943)
• Sea Sketches, for String orchestra (1944)
• Piano Concerto (unfinished) (1949)
• The Dark Island, Suite for string orchestra (1949)
• Violin Concerto (1950)
• Variations on a Swedish Tune The Shoemaker for Piano and Orchestra (1950)
• The Dancers, Choral Suite (1951)
• Hiraeth, for harp (1951)
• Three Nocturnes, for two pianos (1953)
• Seven Scenes for Young Listeners, for orchestra (1954)
• Penillion, for orchestra (1955)
• Symphony No. 2 (1956)
• All Seasons shall be Sweet (1959)
• The Parlour, opera (1961)
• Processional for orchestra (1962)
• Trumpet Concerto (1963)
• Carillons, for oboe and orchestra (1965)
• Severn Bridge Variations (collective work) : Variation V (1966)
• Ballads for Orchestra (1968)
• Castell Caernarfon, for orchestra (1969)
• Missa Cambrensis (1971)
• Ave Maris Stella, for SATB chorus a cappella (1973)
• Fairest of Stars, for soprano and orchestra (1973)

Personal Life

During and after World War II, Grace Williams had some health challenges related to stress. She passed away in February 1977 in Barry, at the age of 70.

See also

In Spanish: Grace Williams para niños