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"):

Hey @musihist, what happened OTD in music history that isn't about a man? How about tomorrow? And the day after that?

— (((Kendra Leonard))) (@K_Leonard_PhD) December 15, 2017

Follow us and find out.

— MusicandHistory (@musihist) December 15, 2017

Since Dec 1, you've posted more than 150 tweets. Only two are about women. That's a terrible ratio. https://t.co/8Uq1C94YtP

— (((Kendra Leonard))) (@K_Leonard_PhD) December 18, 2017

We can't change the fact that until very recently, women in western music were discouraged from pursuing composition. But we try to make known those who did, and are, creating great works.

— MusicandHistory (@musihist) December 18, 2017

And THERE is the myth! Dr. Leonard summoned me:

.@LindaHyphen want to take on the fallacious argument here that this site/account can't post equally about women because of biased historiography? https://t.co/kfbl7osESZ

— (((Kendra Leonard))) (@K_Leonard_PhD) December 18, 2017

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?

Has Elgar’s Enigma finally been cracked? (Spoiler: No.)

Check out this sensational headline, fresh from Facebook!

“Did a Violin Teacher From Plano, Texas Solve
the World’s Greatest Classical Music Mystery?”
I don’t know, but all these superimposed notes look pretty convincing!

This story has something for everyone: An unassuming person from Middle America finds the solution that has eluded scholars and specialists for generations! If you’re into classical music, this is a major finding that may change the way you listen to a major piece in the repertoire! If you’re an average dude, your kind has just scored a major victory over educated elitists with nothing but gumption and a little help from, yes, God above.

Ah, but remember Betteridge’s Law of Headlines (which I’ve discussed on this blog before): “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” Admittedly, this “law” is intended more for humor than accuracy, but it holds true in this case. No, Bob Padgett did not crack the “Enigma” of Edward Elgar’s famous variations.

Did WH Auden "uncloset" Benjamin Britten?

In looking for subjects for this blog, I often rely upon my friends on social media. More people encounter more articles (obviously), but I also appreciate that they possess different knowledge than I do and therefore spot problems that I would probably miss on my own. They also tend to be the type of people who can’t stand when someone is being wrong on the internet and will post that wrong thing to social media so we can all share in the wrongness of the thing. Without that trait, my blog probably wouldn’t exist.

So, when I encountered this post in my feed from UC Riverside musicologist Byron Adams, I had to investigate further:

I asked Dr. Adams to point me toward some context, and he recommended Philip Brett’s essay “Music, Essentialism, and the Closet” from Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology, which is available on Google Books.

While investigating the initial link from Interlude, however, I noticed a major discrepancy between the headline listed on Facebook (“How WH Auden Helped Benjamin Britten Come Out Of The Closet”) and the headline of Georg Predota’s article in the link (“Coming out! Britten, Auden, and Berkeley”). So, my blog post is going to address two separate issues, both of which are timely: 1) historical treatment of LGBTQ+ figures, and 2) the spread of false information through social media.