Did you know that a song cycle based on Virginia Woolf won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975? I didn’t.
The piece, called From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, was composed by Dominick Argento for medium voice and piano. It was commissioned by the Schubert Club of St. Paul, and premiered Jan. 5, 1975, in Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
You can purchase a CD of a 1975 live performance by mezzo soprano Dame Janet Baker, with Martin Isepp on piano, here. The recording was released in 1997.
[…] Young Concert Artists Presents Jennifer Johnson Cano in NY Recital Debut 5/2, Broadway World The program includes Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, Argento’s From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, and Ravel’s Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques. As with the other concerts in this season’s YCA series, the program will feature a special YCA “alumna,” in … Read “Virginia Woolf set to music won the Pulitzer.” […]