Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867 – 1972)
Margaret Ruthven Lang was born in Boston about 12 weeks after Amy Beach. Her father was a conductor and composer, and her mother was an amateur singer. As a result of her father’s activity in the Boston music community, Margaret was introduced to many of the composers and musicians who flourished there. In 1886, her mother took her to Munich where she studied violin and music theory. She also studied in Boston with George Whitefield Chadwick and John Knowles Paine.
Margaret Lang composed mostly piano pieces and songs, but also wrote some chamber music and orchestral music. While Amy Beach was the first American woman to have a symphony published and performed in 1896, Margaret Lang was the first American woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major symphony orchestra when the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered her Dramatic Overture in 1893.
Margaret Lang composed other orchestral music, but all of it seems to be lost, possibly destroyed by herself. She stopped composing in 1919, and although she continued to be actively interested in music — she was a subscriber to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 91 consecutive seasons — she mostly devoted herself to religious work. She was honored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the age of 100 and died at the age of 104.
Not much of Margaret Ruthven Lang’s music beyond songs and short piano pieces seems to have survived. Here is a performance of her companion piano pieces Twilight and Starlight published in an anthology of piano music in Boston in 1894.