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Sophie Adele Wyss (5 July 1897〔''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 5th ed., 1954, Vol IX, p. 377〕25 December 1983) was a Swiss soprano who made her career as a concert singer and broadcaster in the UK. She was noted for her performances of French works, many of them new to Britain, for giving the world premieres of Benjamin Britten's orchestral song cycles ''Our Hunting Fathers'' (1936) and ''Les Illuminations'' (1940), and for encouraging other composers to set English and French texts. Among those who wrote for her were Lennox Berkeley, Roberto Gerhard, Elizabeth Maconchy, Peter Racine Fricker, Alan Rawsthorne and Mátyás Seiber. ==Life and career== Wyss was born to a musical family in La Neuveville, Canton of Bern, Switzerland.〔 Her two sisters, Emilie Perret-Wyss and Colette Feschotte-Wyss, were also singers, and the three sometimes performed together.〔Gyde, Humphrey. (Liner notes to Symposium Records CD 1409 ), retrieved 9 June 2014〕 She studied at the Geneva Conservatoire and the Basle Music Academy. In 1925 she married a British army officer, Captain Arnold Gyde, who after retirement from the armed forces became a publisher in London.〔 He also became the treasurer of the Committee for the Promotion of New Music,〔 founded in 1943.〔Payne, Anthony. ("Society for the Promotion of New Music" ), Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, retrieved 15 June 2014. 〕 Making her home in England, Wyss embarked on a career as a soloist.〔 At first she failed to impress the critics. After an early recital in London in 1927, ''The Times'' said, "Miss Wyss has some pleasant notes in her voice, but the tone was tight in the upper range. A pronounced wobble, which appeared now and then, and a tendency to go out of tune showed that she has not yet gained sufficient control over her voice."〔"Miss Sophie Wyss", ''The Times'', 17 December 1927, p. 10〕 By the 1930s her notices had improved from reserved to enthusiastic. ''The Times'' said that Wyss "possesses a soprano voice of an exquisitely yielding quality … a singer so completely satisfying that we would not trust ourselves to say how much of the pleasure we derived from her performances was due to her or the music itself."〔"Recitals of the Week", ''The Times'', 22 March 1935, p. 14〕 In 1936, together with Adolph Hallis, Benjamin Britten, Alan Rawsthorne and Christian Darnton, Wyss was a founder of the Hallis Concert Society, which gave a number of innovative concerts in London in the period 1936–1939. These included British premieres of both contemporary and historical British and European music, including works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, François Couperin, Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Elisabeth Lutyens and Elizabeth Maconchy.〔Plant (n.d.) Details of the programmes of these concerts are given at the (Concert Programmes: Darnton collection ) site of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (accessed 10 June 2014).〕 Wyss encouraged British composers to set French texts for her to perform.〔 The most famous work that resulted from this was Britten's ''Les Illuminations'' to words by Rimbaud, which Wyss premiered in London in 1940 with Boyd Neel and his orchestra.〔"Contemporary Music Centre", ''The Times'', 31 January 1940, p. 11〕 Wyss was equally at home with English texts, such as those in Britten's ''Our Hunting Fathers'' (1936)〔 and ''On This Island'' (1937).〔Kildea, p. 136〕 Britten dedicated Vol. 2 of his Folk Song Arrangements (1942) to Wyss and Gyde's two sons, Arnold and Humphrey.〔John Bridcut. (''The Faber Pocket Guide to Britten'', p. 122 ).〕 Britten was also Humphrey's godfather.〔Britten. ''Letters from a Life Vol. 1: 1923–39''. Diary, 19 September 1936: p. 443〕 She gave the first performance of his 8 French Folksongs, in a 1942 National Gallery recital with Gerald Moore, and she and Britten later recorded five of these songs.〔John Bridcut. (''The Faber Pocket Guide to Britten'', p. 395 ).〕 However, by 1942, Britten's knowledge of voice and vocal technique had greatly increased, and he preferred Peter Pears's interpretation of ''Les Illuminations'' to Wyss's performance, which he described to a close friend as "hopelessly inefficient, subjective & (of all things) so coy & whimsey!!!"〔Britten. ''Letters from a Life Vol 2: 1939–45''. Letter 397, 30 September 1942: p. 1089〕 Though Wyss was keen to resume her professional relationship with Britten, he was no longer interested but confessed to Pears that he was "too fond of her to be rude, & not interested enough to be critical".〔Britten. ''Letters from a Life Vol 2: 1939–45''. Letter 392, 25 September 1942: p. 1080〕 As a near neighbour of Gerald Finzi's, from 1941 Wyss performed in several of his concerts involving the Newbury String Players, singing the Aria from Finzi's ''Dies Natalis'' as well as works by Byrd, Purcell, Handel, Ivor Gurney, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.〔McVeagh, Diana. ''Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music''. Boydell Press, 2005: pp. 120, 123, 128 & 131.〕 Wyss gave many first performances of works in French or English by composers including Lennox Berkeley,〔(Boosey & Hawkes ), retrieved 9 June 2014〕 Roberto Gerhard, Elizabeth Maconchy, Peter Racine Fricker, Alan Rawsthorne, George Enescu, Antony Hopkins〔(British Classical Music: The Land of Lost Content, Thursday 9 Aug 2012, Antony Hopkins: Portrait of a Composer CD1... ), retrieved 9 June 2014〕 and Mátyás Seiber.〔〔 She was also a leading exponent of songs by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Reynaldo Hahn, Maurice Ravel and other French composers.〔 During a career that lasted until the early 1960s Wyss broadcast extensively for the BBC, and made concert tours in continental Europe and Australia.〔 She died in Bognor Regis on the south coast of England at the age of 86. In an obituary notice, ''The Times'' concluded, "Her contribution to British musical life was something special and will be hard to replace".〔"Sophie Wyss", ''The Times'', 2 January 1986, p. 10〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sophie Wyss」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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