Among the forgotten and/or neglected composers of the 20th century coming to light these days, Ruth Gipps (1921-1999) is one of the most intriguing. Being a woman certainly didn’t help, but the fact that her music, especially that written post-WWII, was ploughing a mainstream furrow decidedly out of fashion by the mid-1950s, all conspired to consign it to oblivion. Until now, that is. 

Born in the resort town of Bexhill-on-Sea, Gipps was a gifted pianist who in 1937 entered the Royal College of Music aged 16. Quickly adding composing to her portfolio, she studied with (Uncle Ralph) Vaughan Williams and Gordon Jacob. Taking up the the oboe as second study (with Leon Goossens no less), she joined the City of Birmingham Orchestra in the depths of wartime as oboe doubling cor anglais. Their conductor, George Weldon, would program some of her early orchestral works.

The Oboe Concerto was written for her close friend Marion Brough (rather endearingly, they used to call each other ‘Sausage’ and ‘Other Sausage’). The premiere took place in 1942 in the grim-sounding surrounds of London’s Northern Polytechnic Institute and Gipps played Brahms’s...