Raphaela Gromes on Fortissima

Raphaela Gromes is renowned as one of the most communicative and passionate cellists of her time, and is a leading light in promoting the voices of female composers from across the history of music. Her new album embodies this perfectly, with engaging performances of music that deserves recognition for its own considerable qualities, and for which it would be very hard to find a more persuasive exponent. I spoke to Raphaela ahead of the album release, about her motivations and programme choices, involvement in preparing a new edition for Henle, and her musical partnerships, including with the Bergonzi Stradivarius cello of which she is the current custodian.

Your new album, Fortissima, is the follow-up to Femmes, and continues the important work of promoting female composers. What made you turn straight to making a second album? Do you think the conversation has moved on, or are we still at the foot of a steep hill?

I was starting my research for female composers during the pandemic, so I had some free time on my hands and I thought 'What can I do with this to use it properly?'. I had not heard so much about female composers during my studies and in my career, but I had a feeling that there might be some more things to discover. When I started my research for Femmes, I realised very quickly that it could only be the beginning because there is such a huge multitude and also great quality of those works that my goal was to show this on Femmes in small pieces, and include many names, from Hildegard until the modern ages.

I also wanted to show that there were also big, large-scale works by female composers, like cello concertos and sonatas, and that’s how Fortissima came to be. It is a double album again, one disc with cello sonatas and one with cello concertos. Together with Julian Riem, who is my piano partner of thirteen years now, I've played many great cello sonatas by female composers over the last three years. We chose the three that we loved most for the album, the ones which are very close to our hearts, especially the Henriette Bosmans sonata. Henle has published a new edition of this, and Julian and I had the honour to add some comments, fingerings and bowings.

The prejudice of male music critics towards female composers in the last centuries was that they are not able to write big scores, so it was important for me to not only do the chamber music, but also orchestral works. Of the many cello concertos by female composers, I chose the first cello concerto ever written by a woman, that of Marie Jaëll, and next to it the concerto by Maria Herz, which in my opinion is one of the most exciting works of this genre in modern times. I played it with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester already, at the Bridgewater Hall.

Speaking of the Bosmans sonata, in the second section of the first movement, after the intensity of the first theme, we get these lovely falling patterns that lead into a more gentle mood. That's important, isn't it, because it shows the variety of the writing. This is not a female composer, this is a composer.

True, and I think every female composer who was a good composer knows how to do both, like every male composer who is a good composer has to have both power and gentle movements, because that's what classical music is about. I think every good classical composition is able to show this in the work - to show fear, desperation and aggressive parts, but also doubt, love and really gentle feelings in the music. I think classical music is all about that range, so we should never say that one could only do the one thing or the other.

One of the things I read about Mayer is that she was often described as the female Beethoven, but I think that rather undermines her work, doesn't it? 

I think this happened because she wrote many symphonies as well, and she was premiered in Berlin very successfully, which was very rare for a woman in that period. Also, many critics thought that she was the first female to ever write symphonies, which is wrong, because Louise Farrenc was before her. It was a compliment to compare her to Beethoven, but it shows how narrow-minded the critics were. 

Have you intentionally picked repertoire to show there have been talented female composers across time periods and not only from the twenty-first century? 

Yes, I did that, but on Femmes, of course, I showed a much larger scale - starting with the medieval ages and then Baroque and classical periods, and we start with the Romantic period on Fortissima. I could have picked composers before Emilie Mayer, but we wanted to have also a nice dramaturgy, a nice red line during the album. So, we thought not to start too early to have some thread holding everything together, but it was our intention to show that already back then there had been such talented, amazingly genius female composers.

You end both halves of the album with transcriptions, arrangements of pop songs. Where did that idea come from? 

The whole Fortissima album is a Femmage to great female musicians, so I wanted to also make a bow to the popular icons of our day, and there are many wonderful female singers. I think songs that can be played on the cello need a great melody as well, not just nice text – a melody that can come to the heart without the lyrics. Adele has beautiful melodies that match the cello very well, and also Pink is a statement because she is a feminist, and she is so very free in everything she is doing. She never wanted to fit any stereotype or female beauty contest - she just goes her own way, and I like her statement of being a feminist and being very true to yourself.

Was the Rebecca Dale piece written specifically for this album?

I contacted her a few years ago when we had concerts in London, and I asked if she wanted to come to the concerts and have a talk about music after that. I had listened to her Requiem For My Mother, and I found this piece amazingly touching. I feel connected to her through the pain of loss and how she expressed it in her music, because my father died seven years ago. She was so amazed and touched by my musical playing that we had the idea to collaborate in some way, and I said 'I have this album about female composers coming up: perhaps you want to write something for that.' We got the score three days before the recording, but we loved it at once, and she came to Berlin to record it with us. She was making really detailed comments about what we had to do and changing a lot in the recording process. It was really bringing music alive in the moment.

You play a special Bergonzi Stradivarius cello; what's your relationship with the instrument? 

I'm so very grateful to be able to play on that instrument. Three years ago, some sponsors came to me and said, you can find your instrument, we want to make your dreams come true. I didn't think about Bergonzi before, because there are so many great violins by Bergonzi, but not many cellos, and they are not famous, but when I first played this instrument, I felt at once this is my voice. It's played a huge role in my life since then, because it is shaping the way I'm playing music and working on phrasing, sound quality, articulation… This cello is inspiring me every day.