Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie
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Women Composers' Thread/International Women's Day 2015 on R3
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Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostThat's entirely up to you!
Nothing stopping you exploring the output of women composers like anybody else, if gender is that important a factor to you.
Doesn't matter a scap to me, ferney ... at least when it comes to music!
For goodness' sake, is it too much to expect (most) men to take music seriously enough to recognise that they're missing a lot of good music?
And also for goodness' sake, keep all the anti-women jokes for the Current favourite jokes thread.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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Yes, it's good to explore women's music - and programmes investigating the marginalisation of women composers in the past are relevant. But my gripe is that we have a day devoted to women composers on 8th March (as we did in the 1970s(?) and then it's all "back to normal" for the next 40 years.
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Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post"back to normal"
(oh, and we're not talking about women's music, which sounds too much like women's films, but music by women. It doesn't belong to them, or appeal only to them - it belongs to us all)
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Originally posted by Flosshilde View PostThat's why there needs to be a day (at least)
Realistically, no one would expect the entire classical canon to change overnight, now that 'women composers' have been acknowledged. It is, after all, only one small step in the right direction; and for the entire sex - as opposed to the slightly larger steps that have been taken recently to promote individual men composers.
It's quite reasonable to talk about Radio 3's marking of IWD and celebrating women composers. It isn't reasonable to make any sort of 'fuss' about it, as if women have unfairly been given 'more than men' during this week. But, Prima la Musica.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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Originally posted by french frank View PostCan't you see how myopic that is as a response? The point was that you have to go out and explore women composers' work - if you can find it. If not, well, it doesn't matter because the best is only going to be like men's music. The classical music scene is not unlike this thread: overwhelmingly dominated by men. And most other threads are men talking about men. And when women have to press to get their voices heard they're branded as 'strident feminists'.
For goodness' sake, is it too much to expect (most) men to take music seriously enough to recognise that they're missing a lot of good music?
And also for goodness' sake, keep all the anti-women jokes for the Current favourite jokes thread.
Firstly I'm not aware I posted any 'anti-women' jokes though I can enjoy a bit of teasing even when directed at myself. I certainly don't take myself or anyone else here too seriously!
As it happens, I have just listened to a marvellous account of Bruckner 8 (1st Version) by the NZSO conducted by Simone Young. Simply wonderful.
I understand that Young is female but her gender never crossed my mind. Excellence is to be admired and applauded whether the conductor is male or female.
Anyone can easily purchase works by women composers online with a few clicks of a mouse or its laptop/tablet/smartfone equivalent. It's that easy!
These are the perfectly valid and only points I have been making all along, so I can only assume you have completely failed to understand my posts?
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Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostWhat a strange post ...Nothing stopping you exploring the output of women composers like anybody else, if gender is that important a factor to you.
Doesn't matter a scap to me,
The rest referred to other posters , some making jokes, others making a fuss.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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Originally posted by french frank View PostOf course. One small step for women, another small step for R3.
Realistically, no one would expect the entire classical canon to change overnight, now that 'women composers' have been acknowledged. It is, after all, only one small step in the right direction; and for the entire sex - as opposed to the slightly larger steps that have been taken recently to promote individual men composers.
It's quite reasonable to talk about Radio 3's marking of IWD and celebrating women composers. It isn't reasonable to make any sort of 'fuss' about it, as if women have unfairly been given 'more than men' during this week. But, Prima la Musica.
"I work in conditions like Victoria Station. I've had to work for twenty years in the midst of my young children. Whom do the children always come to with their problems? Who has to keep the place clean in spite of the shortage of domestic help?" [] "I would love a large sound-proof room with a secretary and a housekeeper. There's your answer to why there are so few women artists. In the end you simply have to decide that you can't composer or that you have to do it in whatever circumstances you can".
(Elizabeth Lutyens, in British Composers in Interview, Murray Schaffer, Faber and Faber, London, 1963, P107).
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Originally posted by Beef Oven! View PostI think you might be missing the point. Lutyens, Williams, Musgrave, Tower, Beach and other's music is 'important' but does not get considered as such. Much less 'important' music is considered ahead of these composers. Let's say that in the absence of any other explanation, we can conclude that it is endemic sexism that causes this 'anomaly'.
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Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostSpot on!
Women, like men, should be judged entirely on ability.
Everything else, like gender, big noses, stick-out ears, or whatever, is completely irrelevant!
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostI am nevertheless surprised to see no mention whatsoever in the Radio Times blurb of that dayIt 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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Originally posted by french frank View PostCan't you see how myopic that is as a response? The point was that you have to go out and explore women composers' work - if you can find it. If not, well, it doesn't matter because the best is only going to be like men's music. The classical music scene is not unlike this thread: overwhelmingly dominated by men. And most other threads are men talking about men. And when women have to press to get their voices heard they're branded as 'strident feminists'.
For goodness' sake, is it too much to expect (most) men to take music seriously enough to recognise that they're missing a lot of good music?
And also for goodness' sake, keep all the anti-women jokes for the Current favourite jokes thread.
It's not at all about the fact that the music itself is by women composers; it is (at least in part) about the fact that it is all too often marginalised (i.e. insufficiently often performed, recorded and broadcast) just because it happens to be by women.
As to the notion that Szymanowska, C. Schumann, Farrenc, A. Mahler, (Lili) Boulanger, Bacewicz, Maconchy, Musgrave, Beamish, Bingham, Saariaho, Weir et al were/are all "strident feminists" is about as patently absurd as it can get; even Dame Ethel was not quite that!
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Quite, but could we get back to being a bit more focused on women composers and their music. Rather than just talking about women in general?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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Originally posted by french frank View PostQuite, but could we get back to being a bit more focused on women composers and their music. Rather than just talking about women in general?
If anyone is going to answer, please do so in your own words and not by posting links.
*I take it by this you mean not their personal circumstances or employment (or lack of) opportunities but music itself, or have I got it wrong?
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostI am nevertheless surprised to see no mention whatsoever in the Radio Times blurb of that day of Elizabeth Lutyens, not only one of the very first outside the Schoenberg circle to take up 12-tone composition but, in that, a huge example setter to composers of the 1950s Goehr/Maxwell Davies/Birtwistle generation, not to mention being a women composer.
And, Flossie, by "Back to Normal", I meant just what you said. To have 39 years and 364 days of music by male composers, followed by one day of music by women composers - it's not okay.
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