Where are all the women-composers?
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 4:20PM
Good afternoon, everyone!
I am new on this forum so I am hoping I have not missed a discussion on the topic I am going to bring up. If I have, I would be greatful if someone guided me to the relevant thread.
As a classical music enthusiast, I have high-level knowledge of the major classical music periods/composers/works. Recently, I have realized that I do not know a single woman-composer of significant influence, certainly not untill the 20th century.
I am aware that Clara Schumann did write some piano pieces, but most of her time was taken by earning the money for the family with concert tours or taking care of the household. Alma Mahler was a very promising composer whose husband forbade her to compose.
I have come across two names of women-composers in the 20th century, both from the USA.
Ellen Zwilich, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer prize for music (her work Three movements for orchestra. Jennifer Higdon awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in music for her Violin Concerto.
So my question: where are and who are the women-composers?
And why are their names not as well-known as that of their male colleagues?
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 8:19PM
#2
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
I just tought of two more French women composers:
Cécile Chaminade
and
Nadia and Lili Boulanger.
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 8:23PM
#3
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 8:24PM
#4
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
I have come across two names of women-composers in the 20th century, both from the USA.
Ellen Zwilich, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer prize for music (her work Three movements for orchestra. Jennifer Higdon awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in music for her Violin Concerto.
So my question: where are and who are the women-composers?
And why are their names not as well-known as that of their male colleagues?
I don't know Higdon but the Naxos Zwilich disc (which includes the VC) indicates she's a composer well worth getting to know.
You're missing a few. Amy Beach's best-known compositions missed the 20th Century by a couple of years - her Gaelic Symphony and Piano Concerto. They're well-crafted works, easy on the ear but rather under-characterized. To me, she sounds very similar to Hamilton Harty and is perhaps about as well-known.
Elizabeth Maconchy wrote a series of pithy string quartets and some orchestral pieces (e.g. Proud Thames). A distinctive voice and she's generally grouped with those minor English composers whose time, for the most part, seems to have come and gone (Rawsthorne, Frankel, Fricker, Bush, Lennox Berkeley).
Kaija Saariaho has made a major impact with her opera L'amour de loin. There are excellent cd and dvd recordings.
As to why there are so few women composers, that has been debated endlessly and many theories, from the plausible to the ludicrous, advanced. Perhaps Zwilich and Saariaho are the precursors of a surge in the number of women composers that will parallel experience in the world of literature. I'm not aware of any potentially-great women composers who've been unjustly neglected. It's more a case of there not being many active ones, although in the male-dominated world of 30 and more years ago you could legitimately argue that they weren't encouraged through those important early steps.
Incidentally, women conductors have also been the exception until recent times. Marin Alsop may have broken the mould. We shall see.
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 8:41PM
#5
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
So my question: where are and who are the women-composers?
Wikipedia has a List of female composers by name.
And this list of women composers who've had something released on CD might be of interest.
And why are their names not as well-known as that of their male colleagues?
I'd hazard that the reasons are similar to those why the names of female authors, painters and other creative artists are, generally speaking, not as well-known as their male counterparts - ie, essentially social ones, preventing women learning the required skills in the first place, or practising them if they did learn them, or making a living from them if they did practise them, rather than any lack of innate capability.
Big topic though :-)
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 10:07PM
#6
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
For me Kaija Saariaho is as good as any composer currently alive, I would also say a word for Olga Neuwirth. Going back, the music of Lili Boulanger is meagre in quantity due to her tragically short life, but certainly not in quality, highly original and intriguing stuff especially her Psalm settings. The Maconchy quartets are worth a listen, as was deemed, once upon a time, the chamber music of Priaulx Rainier, but I can´t remember the last time I saw or heard her name mentioned. Ruth Crawford Seeger also has some pieces recorded. There´s a piece I can´t remember now on a great CD she shares with Ives and Ruggles.
Mon, Nov 15 2010, 10:27PM
#7
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
A couple more who I have just remembered are Thea Musgrave and Judith Weir, the latter´s Distance and Enchantment made quite an impression when I first heard it. As for why they aren´t as well known as their male counterparts I would concur completely with Spiderjon
Wed, Nov 17 2010, 1:51PM
#8
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
Thank you, everyone! I appreciate the responses.
Will gladly get to know these names.
Thu, Nov 18 2010, 12:54AM
#9
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
Some years ago the BBC Music Magazine cover CD was an all women effort. A concertante piece by Clara Schumann (orchestrated elsewhere if I remember correctly) with chamber works by Fanny Mendelssohn & Louise Farrenc & played by Diana Ambache with her orchestra & chamber ensemble. I was rather taken by Farrenc's clarinet trio which led me to an ASV CD with two of her piano quintets, well worth a listen.
From the 20th century my No1 woman composer would be Grace Williams based on a couple of Lyrita CDs. The disc with the delightful Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Themes, Carillon for oboe & orchestra, Penillion, Trumpet Concerto & Sea Sketches for string orchestra is a real winner for anyone who wants to venture off the beaten track. As usual with Lyrita performances are superb; Charles Groves with LSO & RPO with LSO principals as soloists: Howard Snell magnificent in the trumpet work. David Atherton & ECO give the Sketches. The brilliance, presence and immediacy of the (Decca made?) analogue recording are stunning and really involve one in the music. "You are there" to quote the Mercury records slogan.
The Amy Beach items mentioned above don't quite get there for me. The massive piano concerto presumably takes Brahms as its model but is weak thematically I think.
Thu, Nov 18 2010, 5:09PM
#10
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
33lp, your post gave me an idea and I searched the Gramophone archive on this topic.
The March 1995 p. 25 issue of the magazine has an interesting discussion on the topic I have raised and also refers to an earlier article on the subject that I am trying to trase at the moment.
I will post more if I find anything interesting on this in past issues of Gramophone.
Sat, Nov 20 2010, 6:07PM
#11
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
A good bit of detective work there Evgeniya! A 368 page book on over 100 women composers and a 548 page book of 875 of them! Who would have thought that?
Mon, Nov 22 2010, 3:04PM
#12
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
33lp, such thick books are not very useful, are they? Too much information.
The questions is - which of these women's works is it really worth exploring in greater depth. And apart from the very helpful comments on this forum I haven't found a source that would answer that.
I appreciate, that any short-list would naturally be subjective, however, it is better than having 875 names listed to you - you have no idea where to being, it is absolutely unrealistic to go through such a list!
Mon, Nov 22 2010, 4:42PM
#13
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
The French IRCAM website might be useful for you especially with information on the work of Kaija Saariaho. Here is the link http://www.ircam.fr/?L=1
If you need French documents translated I would be happy to assist you pro bono, provided however you research is for non-profit purposes.
Mon, Nov 22 2010, 4:49PM
#14
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
The FIMIC website in Finland might also be able to assist you. Their information is readily available in English.
http://www.fimic.fi/fimic/fimic.nsf/frontpage?openform&cat=main
Mon, Nov 22 2010, 7:07PM
#15
RE: Where are all the women-composers?
Oh, and don't forget Hildegard von Bingen!
Any of the International Association of Music Information Centre
members will be able to point you in the
direction of women composers - there are hundreds of us out there. A
short list of Australians to start with:
* Elena Kats-Chernin (well,
Russian, but living in Australia - if you're in the UK, you'll know a
snippet of her work Black Swans from the Lloyds TSB adverts)
* Peggy Glanville-Hicks
* Anne Boyd
* Moya Henderson
* Miriam Hyde (wrote a vast amount of educational music, but also some large-scale orchestral works)
* Margaret Sutherland
* Kirsty Beilharz
* Katy Abbott
You might also want to look at the website of Women in Music, an organisation that works to raise awareness of women composers - they maintain a list of events too. And there's the International Alliance for Women in Music too.
Two I can think right off the bat are Sofia Gubaidulina - a Russian, and, Kaja Saariaho, a Finn, who studied composition in France.
One major work by Saariaho, which has received much attention, is the opera, L'Amour de Loin, in French, which received performances both at the Santa Fe Opera and in Paris at the Theatre du Chatelet.
http://www.saariaho.org/
http://www.boosey.com/composer/Sofia+Gubaidulina
http://www.emusic.com/composer/Sofia-Gubaidulina-MP3-Download/11621839.html
http://www.emusic.com/composer/Kaija-Saariaho-MP3-Download/11637851.html
I have no clue as to why their works are not as well known as those of their male counterparts.
I just remembered, the sister of Felix Mendelsohn, Fanny was also a composer in her own right.
A music lover currently living in the middle of nowhere.