Marga Richter

EPILOGUE

129 epilogue taking old age in stride, Richter has not thought of retiring and remains focused on composition. She continues to spend summers in Vermont and enjoys the beauty around her and visiting with professional colleagues, friends, and family. In her zest for living and her dedication to her art, Richter is a role model for younger composers and performers. Richter’s musical style has remained fairly constant throughout her life. Dissonance , slowly unfolding free forms, ostinatos and layering, a loose tonality—all of these are present in her earliest works and last throughout her compositional career. Her later works are less dissonant than her earlier ones but still use chromaticism quite freely. Richter has gone her own way, shunning any formal stylistic “schools” such as twelve-tone or neoclassicism. Her early training and selection of compositional genres reflect her Germanic roots to some degree, but mostly she exhibits an American orientation toward music in her stylistic freedom and wide-ranging selection of texts and images. She does not use Copland-like“Americanisms ,” though many of her works have expansive textures. The recognizable ostinato patterns and loose adherence to tonal centers make her music accessible, but the texts, slow rhythms, and dissonances also challenge the listener. Richter generates her own unique forms from her initial materials and ideas. The works are strong enough to deserve more play in the concert hall as artistic creations by a unique American woman. While Richter dislikes the term feminist, she often behaves in feminist ways. Her involvement with the League of Women Composers, her participation on concerts of music by women composers, her drive, her view of her work as an important part of her individual identity,and her independence of thought all seem feminist. She has always had a confidence and belief in her own artistic skill irre- 130 spective of the external successes and reviews that she has received. Nonetheless, she also likes the traditional gender roles. She was mostly financially supported by her husband and valued being the primary caretaker of her children.The tension between the various aspects of her life makes her an intriguing figure to consider in thinking about women’s roles today. ...