Women in music
Women in music have occupied many roles in the art over the centuries and have been responsible for a multitude of contributions, shaping movements, genres, and trends as singers, songwriters, composers, instrumental performers, and educators, and in behind-the-scenes roles. At the same time, however, many roles in music have been closed to or not encouraged for women. There has been growing awareness of this since perhaps the 1960s, and doors have been opening.
Women's music refers to music created by and directed towards women. It may explore political and social topics, influencing and impacting creativity, activism, and culture.
Western composers
Few works by women composers are part of standard classical music repertoire. In the Concise Oxford History of Music, for example, Clara Schumann is one of the only women composers mentioned.Medieval Era
During the Medieval Era, most art music was created for liturgical purposes. Due to views about the roles of women held by religious leaders, few women composed this type of music, with exceptions such as Hildegard von Bingen.Von Bingen, a German Benedictine abbess, was a composer, writer, and philosopher. One of her works as a writer and composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and an early morality play. Seventy-seven of her sequences, each with its own original poetic text, survive, one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.
She also composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum . The songs from the Symphonia are set to her own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences to responsories. Her music is described as monophonic, using melodies that pushed the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant.
Renaissance Era
Two Renaissance women in music stand out as particularly of note: Maddalena Casulana and Caterina Assandra, both Italian.Maddalena Casulana
was an Italian composer, lutenist, and singer. In Venice, her book of madrigals for four voices, Il primo libro di madrigali, was the first printed and published work by a woman in Western music history. In the dedication, she wrote about her feelings as a woman composer: " want to show the world, as much as I can in this profession of music, the vain error of men that they alone possess the gifts of intellect and artistry, and that such gifts are never given to women." Other composers of the time, such as Philippe de Monte, thought highly of her.Caterina Assandra
was an Italian composer and Benedictine nun. She was also an organist and published various works, composing motets and organ pieces. Her motet O Salutaris Hostia, included in Motetti op. 2, was one of the first pieces to include the violone.Baroque Era
Baroque women musicians of note include Francesca Cacchini and Barbara Strozzi and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre.Francesca Caccini
was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher. When she sang at the wedding of Henry IV of France and Maria de Medici in 1600, Henry praised her as the best singer in France. In her native country, she worked in the Medici court as a teacher, chamber singer, rehearsal coach, and composer of both chamber and stage music.Barbara Strozzi
was an Italian Baroque composer and singer. Renowned for her poetic ability and compositional talent, Strozzi was said to be "the most prolific composer—man or woman—of printed secular vocal music in Venice in the middle of the century."Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre
was a French composer, musician, and harpsichordist. Born into a family of musicians and master instrument-makers, she was a child prodigy and performed on the harpsichord before King Louis XIV. She became a musician in the Royal Court and taught, composed, and gave concerts at home and throughout Paris. One of the few well-known women composers of her time, she composed in a wide variety of musical forms. Her talent and achievements were acknowledged by Titon du Tillet, who accorded her a place on his Mount Parnassus—a monument to the glory of French poets and musicians under the reign of Louis XIV—when she was only 26 years old.Classical Era
The Classical Era produced quite a number of Western women in music in various countries, including Maria Teresa Agnesi, Princess Anna Amalia, Elisabeth Olin, Henriette Adélaïde Villard de Beaumesnil, Marianne von Martínez, and Harriet Abrams and Jane Mary Guest. Several also played instruments—such as Princess Anna Amalia, Henriette Adélaïde Villard de Beaumesnil, and Jane Mary Guest—or sang, such as Elisabeth Olin and Harriett Abrams. Maria Teresa Agnesi and Marianne von Martínez did both in addition to composing.Maria Teresa Agnesi was an Italian composer, harpsichordist, and singer. Her career was made possible by the Austrian Lombardy, which was around women's rights.
Princess Anna Amalia was a Prussian composer. She learned to play the harpsichord, flute, and violin at a young age. She became the abbess of Quedlinburg in 1755. She achieved fame as a composer and is known for her smaller chamber works, including trios, marches, cantatas, songs, and fugues. She was also a curator and collector of music scores, preserving over 600 volumes of works by composers Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Karl Heinrich Graun, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
Elisabeth Olin was a Swedish opera singer and composer. She became a vocalist in regular public concerts at the Riddarhuset in Stockholm. She was the prima donna of the Swedish opera for a decade. In 1773, she became the first woman to be granted the title Hovsångare, and in 1782 she was inducted as the first women member into the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
Henriette Adélaïde Villard de Beaumesnil was a French composer and opera singer. She began working in minor comedy roles at age seven and debuted as a soloist at the Paris Opera in 1766. She was the second woman to have a composition performed at the Paris Opéra.
Marianne von Martínez was an Austrian composer, singer and pianist. Metastasio noticed her precocious talents and came to oversee her musical education, which included keyboard lessons from Haydn, singing lessons with Porpora, and composition lessons with Johann Adolph Hasse and imperial court composer Giuseppe Bonno. She played for the imperial court, where she gained attention for her voice and keyboard playing, and was frequently asked to perform before Empress Maria Theresa.
Harriett Abrams was an English composer and soprano. As a singer, she was praised for her performances of George Frideric Handel's work. She studied singing, music theory, and composition with composer Thomas Arne before making her opera début in 1775 at the Theatre Royal in London. She became a principal singer at London concerts and provincial festivals, appearing regularly from 1780 to 1790.
Jane Mary Guest was an English composer and pianist. A pupil of Johann Christian Bach and initially composing in the galante style, She composed keyboard sonatas, other keyboard works, and vocal works with keyboard accompaniment. She was the piano teacher of Princess Amelia of the UK and Princess Charlotte of Wales.
Romantic Era
In the Romantic Era, the Polish Maria Szymanowska and Germans Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann won much renown.Maria Szymanowska
was a well-known Polish composer and pianist. She maintained connections with other notable artists, including Gioacchino Rossini, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Adam Mickiewicz.Fanny Mendelssohn
was one of the best-known women composers of the 1800s. She showed prodigious musical ability and began to compose as a child. Even though family visitors were equally impressed by Fanny and her brother Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny was limited by the attitudes of the time. Her father was tolerant, rather than supportive, of her activities. He wrote to her in 1820, telling her that "music will perhaps become his profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament." Felix also cautioned her against publishing under her own name, commenting about her:Clara Schumann
was a German composer and concert pianist who had a 61-year concert career. From an early age, she had a one-hour lesson in piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony, composition, and counterpoint. In 1830, at age 11, she had become a skilled soloist, and she left on a concert tour of European cities. In the late 1830s, she performed to sell-out crowds and glowing reviews. Frédéric Chopin described her playing to Franz Liszt, who came to hear one of her concerts and subsequently "praised her extravagantly" in a letter published in the Parisian Revue et Gazette Musicale. She was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin, Austria's highest musical honor.She was also instrumental in changing the kind of programs expected of concert pianists. In her early career, she played what was then customary, mainly bravura pieces designed to showcase her technique, often in the form of arrangements or variations on popular themes from operas, written by virtuosos such as Thalberg, Herz, or Henselt. As it was also customary to play one's own compositions, she included at least one of her own works in every program, works such as her "Variations on a Theme by Bellini" and her popular "Scherzo". Her works include songs, piano pieces, a piano concerto, a piano trio, choral pieces, and three Romances for violin and piano.