Tuesday, December 19, 2017

If we've never heard of women composers from past centuries, does that mean they didn't exist? (Tweets about Women Composers, part 1)

Amy Beach, an actual woman composer of the 19th century!
Hello, everyone! This blog post is going to be in a different format due to a recent, complicated, multi-threaded Twitter discussion. Since there's no platform that organizes Twitter threads as intuitively as the human brain, I'm going to do my best to untangle them here. I chose to embed the Tweets so you can explore some of the branches I've left out, if you so desire. However, the post is so long that I'm going to have to break it into two parts! Here we go:

It began with musicologist Kendra Leonard asking a music history account about their OTDs ("On This Date"):



And THERE is the myth! Dr. Leonard summoned me:
Note: She used my personal Twitter handle (@LindaHypen) instead of the one I use only for this blog (@MusHistCliches). Feel free to follow this account for musicological discussions like this one, but be aware that I also tweet about my cancer, my son, and my cat.

Like many myths, it is based on a bit of truth: Women have historically been discouraged from composing. (Unfortunately, this continues today, for reasons that will be explained by someone else later in this post.) I've even gotten into a different Twitter discussion about this, with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as the prime example.

Just as women in general have been encouraged to focus on domestic matters and not work outside the home, they were discouraged from seeking advanced training in composition because it would distract from their household responsibilities. As Abraham Mendelssohn told his daughter Fanny, "for you [music] can and must only be an ornament, never the basis of your being and doing."

So, what makes this a myth?

Before I answered, musicologist Marian Wilson Kimber jumped in with source-based knowledge:


Dr. Wilson Kimber is an expert on women composers in the 19th century (she prompted the post on Clara Schumann last year), so I'm grateful she could bring solid evidence to the discussion!

My contribution more directly explained why the initial statement is a myth:





Rob Deemer clarified my post with updated information:
The conversation spread out in many directions! I've included as many pertinent Tweets as I could find, but I may have to update this to include more as I become aware of them. I also omitted Tweets that got too personal or otherwise didn't seem to move the conversation forward.





























So ends Part 1! But the conversation kept going, particularly once Emily E. Hogstad shared her thoughts. (Look for Part 2 to be posted tomorrow!) [UPDATE: Here's Part 2!]

Thank you to everyone who joined this conversation and made it as enriching as it turned out to be!

15 comments:

  1. Hi Linda,

    Would you be able to direct me to some sources in support of Kendra Leonard's statement above that "Nadia Boulanger told [women composers that they] should stop composing, get married, & pop out some new *male* prodigies"? I haven't considered that Boulanger's legacy of predominantly male composition students was in part her own doing, and would appreciate more information.

    Thanks!

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    1. You can find primary sources for my claim in my book The Conservatoire American: a History.

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    2. Oh and also here: http://www.kendraprestonleonard.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Excellence-in-Execution.pdf

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    3. Excellent. Thank you.

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  2. Hi Linda, thanks for the blog!
    Would someone please update @robdeemer the correct spelling of Peggy Glanville-Hicks? (Not Gianville). I’m not on twtter.
    Kim.

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    1. Hello, Kim! Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't allow users to edit their Tweets once they've posted. (I use the wrong canon/cannon in tomorrow's post, and I can't fix it!) But thank you for the clarification on Glanville-Hicks's name, for the people who may have never heard of her until this post.

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  3. We have scores from more than 1800 women composers in our archive Frau und Musik here in Frankfurt
    www.archiv-frau-musik.de

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  4. Thanks as ever, Linda! And thanks to Kendra for starting this discussion. My own read is that we need to rethink what we consider under the umbrella of "authorship"--that just because women didn't compose (or didn't compose in the way we expect them to, creating "great works" that can withstand scrutiny as text along criteria established to justify a canon chosen a priori to adhere to those criteria), that doesn't mean that they weren't active agents within their musical environments. In any case, hurrah for your work and for those seeking to elevate women of the past and present!

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  5. Well, I entirely missed this discussion, or I would have joined! This is exactly the kind of filing-cabinet-drawer writing/research that Salon Without Boundaries is wanting to confront. I agree that music history shouldn't be segregated, but men have had the rostrum for hundreds of years, so I think some evening up is needed - as this points up perfectly.

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  6. Thanks for this Twitter roundup! I missed the majority of this when it was going on.

    A book I've been reading that helps to debunk the "women haven't composed much" myth, as well as point out a number of reasons why the music that female composers *did* write was suppressed, is "Sounds and Sweet Airs" by Anna Beer. Apologies if you already know of it, but I would recommend it to people who aren't otherwise acquainted with women composers in music history.

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    1. It's on my to-read list! With all that's going on RIGHT NOW, I should move it up so I read it sooner rather than later.

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  7. I missed this on Twitter too.
    This kind of filing-cabinet drawer research that dismisses women and their part in Music and broader culture is exactly why we started Salon Without Boundaries. As Marion points out, there were more women being programmed historically than now -including opera. And I do agree that we shouldn’t need to segregate, but after centuries of positive discrimination for men, I think some particular pointing up of women and their output is necessary.

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    1. That's how I address the issue of "Why do feminists want more for women when we should be working for equality?" My response is that it would be great if we were starting with a level playing field; then equality would be a matter of maintaining the status quo. But that's just not the situation we inherited, and we have to do a lot of compensating before we even get to equality.

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  8. As for the timeliness of this discussion, this article in the Boston Globe ran the day after this entry posted: Area musicians call on BSO to diversify programming.

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  9. Bonjour,

    Very interesting post. I have to search for Women composer's works on Apple Music since they show me almost only men composer's works. So far I have found 1189 albums with works by women only. You can see all those albums with links to Apple Music on my site michellemonette.net It is in French but the names of the albums are mostly in English. These 1189 albums are part of 2806 albums with works by women (1290 Women actually). When I look at new releases,trying to find recorded works by women, I found an average of 2 or 3 albums on 100 new releases. I also search for reviews about the 1189 albums, but they are hard to find.

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