Music Matters : Jenni Murray's Women Composers.

[smittims]

Here we go again. wait for all the old fallacies to be revived again . There's one already on the rubric. 'Far more than with their male contemporaries, obstacles have been thrown in their way'. this is untrue. Many., many male composers had obstacles in their way . Neither Elgar nor Havergal Brian ever had a composition lesson. Many women composers have had, and still have, excellent professional musical education. If their music isn't good enough there's no point in making excuses any more than there is for wel-educated male composers who aren't good enough.

[oddoneout]

While I share some of your dislike for the way the subject is approached these days, I would point out that a major obstacle women composers( and performers) faced was being forbidden, or curtailed, to pursue their music, especially if they were married. I don't think male composers were forbidden to compose or perform by their wives, and I think were also less likely to be constrained by society expectations about suitable occupations. I am not suggesting that the latter did not exist, but that going against the grain was more possible.

[french frank]

Here we go again

Quite

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just waiting for the series on the barriers to composers from a working class background. Brian of course being one of the tiny number who came from such a background. It would also have the merit of contemporary relevance as those barriers still exist today- they might , with the decline of church attendance and choirs , be even worse . Even rock and pop is dominated by the sons and daughters of the middle classes .
Such a series of course would demand the sort of originality of thinking and editorial bravery that is rare in BBC Radio these days and sadly it’s even fizzing out in the much better funded TV .It’s all so utterly predictable.

PS the sound on Jenni Murray’s trail is not of broadcast standard - was it recorded in a cupboard?

[Master Jacques]

I don't think male composers were forbidden to compose or perform by their wives, and I think were also less likely to be constrained by society expectations about suitable occupations. I am not suggesting that the latter did not exist, but that going against the grain was more possible.

Quite so. The latter certainly did exist, particularly in Victorian England. Arthur Sullivan's prospective father-in-law, the great engineer and shipbuilder John Scott Russell, loved music but actively discouraged his daughter Rachel's engagement to Sullivan, on the grounds that being a musician was incompatible with being a gentleman. As a poor army bandmaster's son born in a Lambeth terrace, Sullivan needed all the luck he could get and to talk of "male privilege" would be ludicrous in his case, as in so many others. It was his talent which opened doors, not his sex.

[Master Jacques]

Just waiting for the series on the barriers to composers from a working class background. Brian of course being one of the tiny number who came from such a background. It would also have the merit of contemporary relevance as those barriers still exist today- they might , with the decline of church attendance and choirs , be even worse . Even rock and pop is dominated by the sons and daughters of the middle classes .
Such a series of course would demand the sort of originality of thinking and editorial bravery that is rare in BBC Radio these days and sadly it’s even fizzing out in the much better funded TV .It’s all so utterly predictable.

PS the sound on Jenni Murray’s trail is not of broadcast standard - was it recorded in a cupboard?

I quite agree. I'm bored with hearing mediocre works by privileged daughters of wealthy middle-class or aristocratic plutocrats predictably hailed as heroic achievements. This is a great sentimentalism (to put it politely) of our time, and Jenni Murray is of course the perfect vehicle for conveying it: Woman's Hour was vastly improved - and democratised - by her forced retirement.

[Barbirollians]

I think some people on here could do with some diversity training, The idea that there weren't massive obstacles in the face of women composers until the middle of the 20th century strikes me as antedluvian in its approach to discrimination. Women have suffered and continue to sufffer discrimination on grounds of their sex throoghout history. There is nil reason why that doesn't apply to music .

You might not like the music of those composers played or illustrated but to suggest that there wasn't discrimination is bilge of the first order.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Quite so. The latter certainly did exist, particularly in Victorian England. Arthur Sullivan's prospective father-in-law, the great engineer and shipbuilder John Scott Russell, loved music but actively discouraged his daughter Rachel's engagement to Sullivan, on the grounds that being a musician was incompatible with being a gentleman. As a poor army bandmaster's son born in a Lambeth terrace, Sullivan needed all the luck he could get and to talk of "male privilege" would be ludicrous in his case, as in so many others. It was his talent which opened doors, not his sex.

I suppose if we were to redefine musicians as working class then my argument doesn’t stand up as so many are the children of musicians - Beethoven , Mozart and indeed Sullivan, I suppose in Beethoven’s day the jobbing musician pretty much was - dressed in livery like a servant. But somehow I can’t quite picture Liszt or Wagner as horny handed sons of toil - nor indeed Paganini . Now of course those children that go to private schools or with wealthier parents who can afford music lessons have an inherent advantage. In the nineties our local public school had , I noticed two Yamaha boudoir grands , the nearest state school a banged up upright. The same is true of drama - there’s even a cadre of UK male acting stars who are Old Etonians.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think some people on here could do with some diversity training, The idea that there weren't massive obstacles in the face of women composers until the middle of the 20th century strikes me as antedluvian in its approach to discrimination. Women have suffered and continue to sufffer discrimination on grounds of their sex throoghout history. There is nil reason why that doesn't apply to music .

You might not like the music of those composers played or illustrated but to suggest that there wasn't discrimination is bilge of the first order.

By that you mean brainwashing ? Yes there’s been discrimination but it’s all so much more complex than big bad men suppressing the talents of women geniuses . Other factors - the lack of decent child care for all but wealthier middle class women, economic inequality, the need to earn a living with no spare time to write - are more important.
It’s all anecdotal Barbs .There’s quite a bit of (again anecdotal evidence) I believe that the high water mark of these “barriers “ wasn’t the 1900’s to 1930’s but the supposedly enlightened 1950’s, 60, 70, 80’s and 90’s. One way of establishing the truth would be a comprehensive analysis of performances and publications and broadcasts but very few historians in this field have the resources for such a mammoth undertaking. The other confusing factor is definition. The most successful female musical artist in musical history is Taylor Swift - do we include or leave out such figures?

[french frank]

The most successful female musical artist in musical history is Taylor Swift - do we include or leave out such figures?

A different world. She seems to have had a privileged upbringing - father, Wiki says, a stockbroker. Singer-songwriters are now among the most successful/widely celebrated musicians, though her musical training seems to have been basic. This is all part of the postwar explosion of 'youth music'/culture, isn't it?

[Roslynmuse]

It has always puzzled me that the great female writers of the nineteenth century managed to get published and recognized for their genius whilst the composers did not (although performers did). So was there something about musical composition specifically that differed from those other activities in terms of opportunity?

[Sir Velo]

Hmmm.... George Eliot; Currer Bell; Ellis Bell; Acton Bell; George Sand - bit of a theme there!

[oliver sudden]

It has always puzzled me that the great female writers of the nineteenth century managed to get published and recognized for their genius whilst the composers did not (although performers did). So was there something about musical composition specifically that differed from those other activities in terms of opportunity?

The main difference I can think of is that as soon as literature is on the page, it exists… whereas getting your piece of music into score form is really just the ‘end of the beginning’. From that point a composer (at least, of anything bigger than a solo piece) still needs lots of infrastructure to get behind them if anyone’s going to hear the thing.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It has always puzzled me that the great female writers of the nineteenth century managed to get published and recognized for their genius whilst the composers did not (although performers did). So was there something about musical composition specifically that differed from those other activities in terms of opportunity?

Generalising like mad but first thoughts.,

Writing a novel or poem requires little more than education to 18 year old level. For all but the Elgars of this world classical composition requires some form of further tuition. It also requires patronage to get performance (an interesting and revealing word in itself) . Female novelists had to battle discrimination- either by hiding their identity (Austen ) or gender (the Brontës). Others like Mrs Gaskell found enlightened patrons like Dickens (hmm maybe enlightened not exactly the right word) . They also benefitted from the sexist perception that novel writing was somehow an acceptable trade for a middle class woman. Music was , apart from piano performance ,not such a trade nor ( emphatically) was the stage. There’s a massive “intersection “ of class and sex in all this . No one cared what the working class did - but how many of them would ever get the chance to write a symphony?

[Serial_Apologist]

Generalising like mad but first thoughts.,

Writing a novel or poem requires little more than education to 18 year old level. For all but the Elgars of this world classical composition requires some form of further tuition. It also requires patronage to get performance (an interesting and revealing word in itself) . Female novelists had to battle discrimination- either by hiding their identity (Austen ) or gender (the Brontës). Others like Mrs Gaskell found enlightened patrons like Dickens (hmm maybe enlightened not exactly the right word) . They also benefitted from the sexist perception that novel writing was somehow an acceptable trade for a middle class woman. Music was , apart from piano performance ,was not such a trade nor ( emphatically) was the stage. There’s a massive “intersection “ of class and sex in all this . No one cared what the working class did - but how many of them would ever get the chance to write a symphony?

Quite - and in state education the cutting of musical education (other than the most basic kind where it survives) has once again become a class factor in encouraging and developing working class professional musicians (other than on scholarships, in limited supply) - something I have mentioned in regard to much of today's younger generation of college-educated jazz musicians changing the character of the music (rather as happened in the case of Progrock in the late 60s and 70s - but those were consensually more culturally enlightened times). I really should check up how much students pay, if at all, to join Gary Crosby's Tomorrows Warriors jazz group - effectively a course in the essentials which has helped many a young working class black musician - and also non-black, it should be added.