Women Composers: Silenced Through the Centuries
February 3, 2010
by Marille Herrmann
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
“I want to show the world as much as I can in this profession of music, the vein error of men, that they alone possess the gifts of intellect and artistry, and that such gifts are never given to women.”
Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590)
“Clara has composed a series of small pieces, which show a musical and tender ingenuity such as she has never attained before. But to have children, and a husband who is always living in the realm of imagination, does not go together with composing. She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many profound ideas are lost because she cannot work them out.“
Robert Schumann in the joint diary of Robert & Clara Schumann.
When we go to concerts, music stores, listen to classic channels there is a stunning lack of female composers. But there were hundreds of composing women, well educated and prolific writers. There were and are obstacles in printing, paying, and playing their music.
Wikipedia lists a large list of female composers, 75% are stubbs. The majority of entries read that in some way or another most of their works had been lost.
A few stories:
Mozart’s older sister “Nannerl Mozart” received musical training just as her brother. The father went on tours through Europe with both children and had them play piano for the emperors of the day. The difference was, when Nannerl had her 18th birthday she was considered of proper age to marry, and was prohibited to show artistic talent. She listened to her father and married an older husband with several children.
Robert Schumann’s wife and composer Clara Wieck Schumann was the daughter and protégé of his piano teacher Mr. Wieck. She started composing as child, was a world re-knowned pianist, traveled with her father through Europe, played in royal courts and sold out audiences, introduced Schumann’s early works and made a case for him. The father resisted the marriage. The couple won a court battle to marry against the father’s wishes when Sarah was a teenager. Mr. Wiek offered Clara her favorite piano to be rebuffed by Robert that there was not enough space for two pianos. Despite many obstacles Sarah managed to produce several works mostly songs and piano trios (available on Cds, & movie entitled “Spring Symphony”).
Felix Mendelson’s sister, married Fanny Hensel was a prolific composer (>400 pieces) and did whatever it took to publish her works including publishing under her brother’s name. Later in her life brother and husband engaged to help publish her work (several CDs).
Musical genes run in families and are distributed unlinked to gender. There were conditions frugal to womens’ music such as the convents in Germany (11th century) and in Italy (16th and 17th century).
Hildegard from Bingen, Germany was a scientist, poet and composer on top of being an abbess running the first women’s convent (works on CD & movies, the latest “vision” by Margarete von Trotta). Hildegard is one of my favorites, very independent, circumvented prosecution by the inquisition, as scientist used effective herbal medicines and not school medicine, integrated the knowledge from the Salerno school of medicine, opposed to flagellation (much practiced at the time), wrote several books, established a large library in her convent, accepted non- nobility into her convent (unheard at the time), and wrote about stones/gems and lovely sacred music.
Several centuries later female composers wrote sacred music, madrigals, motets but some also masses and oratorios in Italian convents. One of the most famous Maria Catalina Calegari drew such large crowds that the Archbishop Alfonso Little got involved for the rumor of lack of moral and stopped all musical productions in 1663. There is only written testimony about her music but no works survived.
These examples show silencing to obstruct women’s creativity. And to this day the musical opinion writers are mostly male and lack to include female contributions appropriately. Despite all the obstacles there are hundreds of female composers, some works survived but only rarely played on our classical music channels.
Action proposal:
- Letter writing campaign to classic channels
- Request from classic channels to play during the month of March 2010 exclusively womens’ music, either from female composer or interpreter. This action will showcase women’s creativity. #1: the channels would update their libraries and include female works, #2: some of the pieces will be remembered and played during the year.
- Awareness that there are listeners who are not accepting the current silencing of female composers. We have no reason to expect that the now living female composers will be better remembered than their foremothers.
For examples of composers to include please ask in comments or email. I will send lists of composers. Will try to also list on my facebook page here.
Sorry, my face book page does not allow to post the composers short bios ( about 8000 words). there is a limit of 420 characters. if anyone has a place to post a 8000 word file with the short bios and work, please let me know. then we could link to it.
my contact per email (marille_h@yahoo.com) or on facebook. I send you the file.
Thank you Marille, for writing this. I am a classical composer and a woman. We have some very sucessful composers in Philadelphia, who happen to be women.
It would be great if some of the old manuscripts of composers like Maddalena Casulana were found and published.
The Pandora Guide To Women Composers by Sophie Fuller covers women composers of Britain and the US from 1629-present.
thanks Juliette,
i will see whether the pandora guide can fill some of the stubbs on Wikipedia.
I received an email today which I want to share because it refers to my piece here. it looks Larry Summers type reasoning is alive and well in music history.
here he goes. feel free to comment. needless to say I could not disagree more with anybody than this commenter. It is quite obvious to detect the obstruction to womens’ accomplishments in so many fields from the outset, the eradication of works and then the few extraordinary ones who managed to have some of their works survive, belittled by prejudice. I bet Mr Petrella has not listened to many female composers.
“I read your blog on female composers and wondered if you were aware that the overwhelming reason for the fact that there are very few female composers in history up to the present and no female composers in the first rank is due to their lack of abstract reasoning ability.
There have been no women of genius and very few of considerable talent in chess, mathematics and musical composition and any other pursuit for which a high level aptitude for abstract reasoning is a necessary condition( while there have been many women of genius in literature and the performing arts, areas which have the least requirement for abstract reasoning)!
If M. Curie seems an exception there is a strong case that her contrbutions were experimental(empirical) not theoretical. That does not diminish her contributions but is consistant with the premise of the discussion here. And if you wish to argue that she was a theoretician then she is the exception that proves the rule.
A greater male aptitude for abstract reasoning has been identified in a wide range of cognitive tests and has been observed so often through out recorded history that we have the stereotype that ‘men are more logical than women’ and that a certain type of rigorous abstract thinking represents ‘thinking like a man’. Just like tests and historical observation lead us to say that ‘women are more perceptive, intuitive and discerning of how people feel and what they might be thinking’
These measured observations and stereotypes measure and reflect male superiority in an aptitude that is a necessary condition for genius in mathematics and related areas and a great advantage for even the lesser ability that is necessary for the usual professional work in these areas, i.e., an applied mathematician vs a theoretical mathematician.
These measurements and observations are sufficient to explain why all those MOST gifted with this aptitude, i.e., abstract reasoning, are males. There is very strong logical and physiological evidence that male superiority in the aptitude for abstract reasoning is rooted in physiology (testosterone and its effect on the architecture of the brain)!
In test scores, the male advantage is most pronounced in the most abstract items. Historically, too, it is most pronounced in the most abstract domains of accomplishment.
In the humanities, the most abstract field is philosophy—and no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions. In the sciences, the most abstract field is mathematics, where the number of great women mathematicians is approximately two (Emmy Noether definitely, Sonya Kovalevskaya maybe). In the other hard sciences, the contributions of great women scientists have usually been empirical rather than theoretical, with leading cases in point being Henrietta Leavitt, Dorothy Hodgkin, Lise Meitner, Irene Joliot-Curie, and Marie Curie herself.
In the arts, literature is the least abstract and by far the most rooted in human interaction; visual art incorporates a greater admixture of the abstract; musical composition is the most abstract of all the arts, using neither words nor images. The role of women has varied accordingly. Women have been represented among great writers virtually from the beginning of literature, in East Asia and South Asia as well as in the West. Women have produced a smaller number of important visual artists, and none that is clearly in the first rank. No female composer is even close to the first rank. Social restrictions undoubtedly damped down women’s contributions in all of the arts, but the pattern of accomplishment that did break through is strikingly consistent with what we know about the respective strengths of male and female cognitive repertoires. Women have their own cognitive advantages over men, many of them involving verbal fluency and interpersonal skills.
Arthur J Petrella
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes
equo ne credite, Teucri!
Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”
marille,
He’s stopped by our blog in the past to “correct” us. Don’t lose any sleep over it. He’s a lune!
update:
I sent my request to shine alight on female composers during march to a series of classic channels and got three positive responses.
here they are: and this Sunday 10 pm there will be a special broadcast on female composers. http://wwfm.org/webcasts_lost_chord.shtml
WSMC classical
Thank you for your email. While we cannot play female composers exclusively, we do broadcast every good piece we can find. Our goal is to bring the finest music to the community irrespective of gender. Music is a universal language.
Thanks again.
Scott D. Kornblum, General Manager
WSMC Classical 90.5
P.O. Box 870, Collegedale, TN 37315
Phone: 423.236.2426
Fax: 423.236.1905
——–
Ms. Herrmann,
Mr. Petrella’s email is, to be kind, lacking in intellectual rigor. I think if you survey our playlist on any given day, you’ll see that we feature a broad range of women as instrumentalists, singers, composers and conductors. It would take a lot of effort not to. We’ve recently been intimately involved with covering Grammy-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s presence as composer-in-residence with our local Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. An interview with composer Margaret Brouwer can be downloaded from our Podcast page at wrr101.com. In the past, we even produced a 15-part series on great women of music.
Needless, to say, we appreciate your efforts very much. Thanks for sending this eye-opening message.
Kurt Rongey
Operations and Programming Manager
WRR Classical 101.1 FM
PO Box 159001, Dallas, TX 75315
Phone: (214)670-8738
Fax: (214)670-8394
krongey@wrr101.com
From:
“Peter Fretwell”
Add sender to Contacts
To:
“marille herrmann” -
Thank you for your note. As a listener to The Classical Network, you know that we share your concerns about recognizing the contributions of females in classical music.
An example from this week – Ross Amico has dedicated his entire program to female composers from Philadelphia, in a program entitled Sisters of Brotherly Love – Women composers of Philadelphia. You can hear the program this Sunday night at 10, and the webcast will be posted at http://wwfm.org/webcasts_lost_chord.shtml.
This program is just one example of the many ways each week that The Classical Network acknowledges female composers, conductors, and performers.
We appreciate your interest in our programming efforts at WWFM, and we collectively invite you to become a supporting member. You can make your pledge at http://www.wwfm.org. Again, thank you for your interest in our programming.
Peter
Peter Fretwell
General Manager
The Classical Network – http://www.wwfm.org
Jazz On 2 – http://www.jazzon2.org
609.570.3727 (direct)
609.570.3863 (fax)
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