Mabel Wheeler Daniels was one of the most accomplished American composers of her generation, and one of the most unjustly forgotten.
She graduated from Radcliffe in 1900, studied composition in Boston with George Whitefield Chadwick and in Munich with Ludwig Thuille, and went on to become the only woman composer to have three works performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her tone poem Deep Forest was the only work by a woman on the program when ASCAP marked its 25th anniversary at Carnegie Hall in 1939. She spent many summers at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and she was a lifelong champion of women in music, insisting always that her own work be judged on its merit and nothing else.
Today a residence hall at Radcliffe bears her name, and her papers are held at the Schlesinger Library. Her music, though, is almost never played.
In her own words
Christmas is in the air, and every street corner has bloomed into a miniature forest of trees.
Selected works
- Deep Forest, tone poem, first written for chamber orchestra and later for full orchestra
- Exultate Deo, for chorus and orchestra
- The Song of Jael, cantata
- Songs of Elfland
- The Holy Star, Christmas anthem
Hearing her music again
The Swampscott Festival, launching in September 2027, will bring Mabel's music home to the town where she was born, with at least one of her works at every concert.
Visit the Swampscott Festival