International Women's Day: Tuesday 8 March

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  • Richard Barrett
    Guest
    • Jan 2016
    • 6259

    #16
    Originally posted by aeolium View Post
    Is it seriously suggested that the relative neglect in concerts and broadcasting of contemporary women composers is because they are women?
    Yes. Although the situation isn't as bad as it used to be. I have seen patronising and sexist attitudes on display towards women composers by some quite prominent (male) performers of contemporary music.
    Originally posted by aeolium View Post
    Simply to dismiss women composers of previous centuries on the grounds that they are just run-of-the-mill and unable to compete with the most well-known male composers is recycling the patronising attitudes that saw them neglected in their own time. If we don't ever hear this music, how can we tell whether there is anything interesting or individual in it that is worth recovering?
    My point is that "we" do hear it, every time some supposedly worthy "women composers" feature turns up. Composing music is not about "competing". I referred to examples of three composers whose music had a wider influence, as opposed to music which is symptomatic of the trends of its time - which of course was produced in large amounts by male composers also. Nobody was patronised.

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    • french frank
      Administrator/Moderator
      • Feb 2007
      • 30752

      #17
      Originally posted by aeolium View Post
      Simply to dismiss women composers of previous centuries on the grounds that they are just run-of-the-mill and unable to compete with the most well-known male composers is recycling the patronising attitudes that saw them neglected in their own time. If we don't ever hear this music, how can we tell whether there is anything interesting or individual in it that is worth recovering?
      I wasn't suggesting they should be dismissed - I think Radio 3 is doing a good job in bringing unknown work forward (and unlike Richard, it's likely to be more to my taste!). I merely thought that promoting contemporary composers such as the ones Richard mentioned would help to alter contemporary attitudes (and conditions) for contemporary, and future, composers: i.e. that no amount of familiarisation with the work of Strozzi now will help change the conditions for her - and more to the point - for her still unknown contemporaries.

      There is surely room for the entire range of historical music? though on the whole contemporary music, whether by men or women, gets a small amount of attention other than in the odd rarified corners - like bits of the Radio 3 schedule. And, here again, I think Radio 3's intention is to integrate more contemporary music throughout the day. Same point.
      It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

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      • MrGongGong
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 18357

        #18
        Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
        My point is that "we" do hear it, every time some supposedly worthy "women composers" feature turns up. Composing music is not about "competing". I referred to examples of three composers whose music had a wider influence, as opposed to music which is symptomatic of the trends of its time - which of course was produced in large amounts by male composers also. Nobody was patronised.
        All three of which would be on my essential listening list and have such a huge influence on recent music.

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        • ahinton
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 16123

          #19
          Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
          Indeed - but precisely because it isn't being featured as part of such an inclusion, (being instead featured to the exclusion of those "quite different ones") it rather gives weight to the "just being chosen because they're the obvious names" (at the BBC at any rate).
          That was indeed very much part of my point; to celebrate the music of contemporary women composers by concentrating unduly on any particular strains of thought from them is to compromise the sheer diversity of what's on offer today and, I believe, this might risk undermining the very point of the exercise.

          Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
          Which is a great, great pity and a lost opportunity - there is a lot of very exciting Music being featured during the week: a little more courage would have maintained this throughout.
          Again, agreed.

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          • french frank
            Administrator/Moderator
            • Feb 2007
            • 30752

            #20
            Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
            it rather gives weight to the "just being chosen because they're the obvious names" (at the BBC at any rate).
            Could be said to apply to all composers. A bit more imagination across the board would be welcome - though that opinion has been voiced elsewhere. The choice of women composers mirrors that of men; albeit women - sadly, but for understandable reasons - get less of a look-in overall.
            It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

            Comment

            • Richard Barrett
              Guest
              • Jan 2016
              • 6259

              #21
              Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
              All three of which would be on my essential listening list and have such a huge influence on recent music.
              Indeed, although the "three composers" actually referred to in the post of mine you're quoting were Byrd, Monteverdi and Schütz, not Fullman, Radigue and Oliveros!

              To add to my reply to aeolium: not only is it not patronising to refer to Strozzi, Caccini, Leonarda etc. as symptomatic rather than central, it does nobody any favours, and certainly doesn't further the cause of gender equality among creative musicians, to suggest otherwise.

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              • MrGongGong
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 18357

                #22
                Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                Indeed, although the "three composers" actually referred to in the post of mine you're quoting were Byrd, Monteverdi and Schütz, not Fullman, Radigue and Oliveros!

                To add to my reply to aeolium: not only is it not patronising to refer to Strozzi, Caccini, Leonarda etc. as symptomatic rather than central, it does nobody any favours, and certainly doesn't further the cause of gender equality among creative musicians, to suggest otherwise.
                That'll stop me skim reading while i'm making up a set of parts.
                but nevertheless Fullman, Radigue and Oliveros are three of the most significant composers of the last 100 year IMV

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                • Richard Barrett
                  Guest
                  • Jan 2016
                  • 6259

                  #23
                  Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
                  That'll stop me skim reading while i'm making up a set of parts.
                  I was going to say: that's nothing, I posted while in the middle of typesetting a full score. But then I just took another look at it and saw all the mistakes I'd made on that page.

                  Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
                  nevertheless Fullman, Radigue and Oliveros are three of the most significant composers of the last 100 year
                  Quite.

                  Comment

                  • aeolium
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 3992

                    #24
                    Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                    My point is that "we" do hear it, every time some supposedly worthy "women composers" feature turns up. Composing music is not about "competing". I referred to examples of three composers whose music had a wider influence, as opposed to music which is symptomatic of the trends of its time - which of course was produced in large amounts by male composers also. Nobody was patronised.
                    We hear a mere fraction of it, and usually the better-known ones, including those with more famous husband/brother/father composers. Unlike you I am not just interested in hearing the work of composers who had a wide historical influence but those who may have had an individual and distinctive style; and influence in any case can be partly due to the opportunities for public performance and publication that one is allowed. My reference to "competing for" was not of course to any kind of race or competition but to the attention and exposure which women artists unlike their male contemporaries were largely denied.

                    i.e. that no amount of familiarisation with the work of Strozzi now will help change the conditions for her - and more to the point - for her still unknown contemporaries.
                    That's true, but it may help to rectify a neglect which she and other women artists down the ages suffered in their own time, and also allow us the possibility of discovering individual voices in a way that for instance small record companies have enabled mainly for neglected male composers in recent decades, including composers whose work may have had no discernible influence but which people have still enjoyed hearing.

                    Comment

                    • Richard Barrett
                      Guest
                      • Jan 2016
                      • 6259

                      #25
                      Originally posted by aeolium View Post
                      Unlike you I am not just interested in hearing the work of composers who had a wide historical influence but those who may have had an individual and distinctive style
                      You have no justification for saying "unlike you" (who is being patronising now?). Of course "an individual and distinctive style" is a much more crucial factor than historical influence (although of course influence is more likely if the music is more distinctive) in whether something is worth listening to - I thought that was too obvious to be worth mentioning - and as it happens I am quite well acquainted with the work of the 17th century women composers I mentioned, to name only these, because I do find their music attractive, and as I pointed out it is noteworthy that it exists at all.

                      edit: sorry, this comes over as rather brusque!
                      Last edited by Richard Barrett; 02-03-16, 17:00.

                      Comment

                      • aeolium
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 3992

                        #26
                        And sorry for my overreaction - I was responding instinctively to phrases like "fairly typical", "musically run-of-the-mill", "symptomatic of trends of the time" which seemed to be a bit dismissive.

                        My main concern was this: according to an international encyclopedia compiled in 1987, there are entries for over 6000 women composers, and perhaps most listeners will be lucky to have heard the music of much more than 20 of those. Even allowing for a large number of uninteresting and perhaps mediocre composers (as there are of male ones), there ought to be some as yet undiscovered which are indeed worth hearing, in addition to those we know. I agree that the music of women composers now living needs to be heard more, but it would be good if there could be some research into the hitherto largely buried music of all those unknowns from the past, simply to see if there is interesting and valuable material there. The dead and neglected deserve a chance too.

                        Comment

                        • ahinton
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 16123

                          #27
                          Originally posted by aeolium View Post
                          And sorry for my overreaction - I was responding instinctively to phrases like "fairly typical", "musically run-of-the-mill", "symptomatic of trends of the time" which seemed to be a bit dismissive.

                          My main concern was this: according to an international encyclopedia compiled in 1987, there are entries for over 6000 women composers, and perhaps most listeners will be lucky to have heard the music of much more than 20 of those. Even allowing for a large number of uninteresting and perhaps mediocre composers (as there are of male ones), there ought to be some as yet undiscovered which are indeed worth hearing, in addition to those we know. I agree that the music of women composers now living needs to be heard more, but it would be good if there could be some research into the hitherto largely buried music of all those unknowns from the past, simply to see if there is interesting and valuable material there. The dead and neglected deserve a chance too.
                          Yes, I agree, in principle; Esther Rantzen recently observerd that those concerned with and involved in the obviously very different inquiries into the abuse of minors over decades ought to be concentrating largely upon what's happening now in that regard and, whilst there is of course no denying the need to address the present, the presumably unintended implication that pushing history to one side in favour of this approach is thereby justified suggests that the possibility of history teaching us anything is something about which we need not especially concern ourselves; the analogy here might well be thought by some to be be far from informative but the general principle of ignoring history in the fond hope that contemporary problems can duly be addressed without reference thereto is bothersome, at least to me.

                          There is, of course (and has long been) a raft of largely social issues surrounding the sidelining of women composers over centuries and these are widely known and recognised; whilst such issues are arguably very different today, I do believe that it is necessary to address the whole in order best to understand the present, hence your observation that it ought to be regarded as necessary to recognise that "the dead and neglected deserve a chance too".

                          Comment

                          • doversoul1
                            Ex Member
                            • Dec 2010
                            • 7132

                            #28
                            Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots (1977)

                            Opera Matinee: Thursday 10th
                            14.00
                            In the week celebrating International Women's Day, Afternoon on 3's Thursday Opera Matinee is Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots. In Musgrave's opera of 1977, Mary, Catholic Queen of Scotland and widowed Queen of France, has been invited by the Protestant Lords to return and assume the Scottish crown. The opera concentrates on her relationships with her half-brother, her husband and the Earl of Bothwell, while she tries to gain the allegiance of Lords of the Council and the people in order to win the crown.
                            Unique performances with BBC Orchestras, Choirs and other great orchestras


                            synopsis
                            Mary, Queen of Scots by Thea Musgrave, published by Novello & Co Ltd
                            Last edited by doversoul1; 03-03-16, 08:40.

                            Comment

                            • Richard Barrett
                              Guest
                              • Jan 2016
                              • 6259

                              #29
                              Originally posted by aeolium View Post
                              according to an international encyclopedia compiled in 1987, there are entries for over 6000 women composers, and perhaps most listeners will be lucky to have heard the music of much more than 20 of those.
                              Which was exactly my point: the ones singled out for these broadcasts are the 20, not the 6000.

                              There are two separate issues here: (a) the underrepresentation of women composers whose work is really making a difference in the present time; (b) the "usual suspects" in earlier periods being brought out yet again in preference to a bit of research into all the others, in the course of which it might very well be that some highly distinctive music would be found, together with an alteration in the perception that women composers of previous eras were working exclusively on smaller scales - for example, the solo keyboard music of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729) is reasonably familiar but there exists a radio recording of her Céphale et Procris (1694), the first French opera written by a woman, which it would be good to have the opportunity to hear. I'm sure there are plenty of other such examples which are passed over in favour of a few obvious names.

                              Comment

                              • doversoul1
                                Ex Member
                                • Dec 2010
                                • 7132

                                #30
                                Record Review: 5 March

                                10.45am – Women Composers with Helen Wallace

                                Viardot: Songs
                                Galina Grigorjeva: Nature Morte
                                Sally Beamish – The Singing
                                Errollyn Wallen: Photography

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