Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem Goblin Market tells the story of sisters Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted with fruit by goblin merchants. The poem is interpreted frequently as having features of remarkably sexual imagery, and has been viewed as an expression of Rossetti’s feminist and homosexual politics.
In 1954 the English composer Ruth Gipps set her own adaptation of Goblin Market for two soprano solos, female chorus and string orchestra.
Mary Arsenau of University of Ottawa’s Department of English comments “Gipps’s score and adapted libretto convey significant and innovative perspectives on Goblin Market that arguably make her composition a prescient innovation in the critical history of this poem. Specifically, Gipps’s decidedly female musical perspective on Rossetti’s poem breaks new interpretative ground that anticipates the feminist literary interpretations of Rossetti’s work that really only began their strong emergence in literary critical history in the 1970s.”
Amazingly, Gipps important score has not been heard for 70 years!
All this is about to change as Corra Sound, a professional upper-voice ensemble to bringing the works of female composers out of the shadows, plans to perform and record the work. The performance takes place on 3 July 2026 at Holy Trinity Church, Guildford with Corra Sound, Great Little Orchestra, conductor Amy Bebbington, with a recording of the work taking place the following week to be issued by Convivium Records in 2027.
The concert will be preceded by a pre-concert conversation between daughter-in-law Dr Victoria Rowe and writer Jessica Duchen.
Corra Sound has launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the project. Further information about the concert from EventBrite.
