On women and composing

[ahinton]

Mostly new to me, too, dovers - I'd only heard the Strozzi songs before - and all worth hearing and re-hearing (generally good performances, too). I was less impressed by the commentary on the Music - lazy recyclings of rumours of "bitchiness" (the word was used by Lucy Skeaping) and "catfights" in Convents, and not very much discussion of how Music worked in them (it would have been nice, too, to hear the Vesper settings as the composer would have heard them, rather than/in addition to the first published versions with male singers). And, rather than rehearse stereotyped "jealousies" between nuns within the Convents, why not give us information about how Cozzolani defended the very right for her nuns to practise (and compose) Music in the face of hostility from the (male) leaders of the Church, who wanted to restrict them to the most basic plainchant singing? Very disappointed at the missed opportunities here.

And, for what it's worth, I find the terms "masculine" and "feminine" at best useless (and, indeed, quaintly old-fashioned) in discussing aesthetic matters, and the Music in this programme demonstrates why: on a "blind" hearing, there is nothing at all "feminine" (nor, for that matter, "masculine") about any of the works we heard. Indeed, evenwith the blindfold removed, I defy anyone to demonstrate how the use of the Musical materials reveals that the composers were women. (But then, I don't hear "thrusting" "masculine" climaxes in Simpson's Music, either - merely the determination of a composer both to pursue a Musical career in spite of family opposition, and to write the Music he was convinced needed to be written. Characteristics exemplified in the work of Elisabeth Lutyens, too - about the only thing they have in common. And Simpson's gorgeous, "focussed meandering" slow movements - quite unique to this composer, and owing nothing to testosterone.)

All such perceptive comments! - and all beyond reasonable challenge, I have to say; couldn't agree more!

Yes, in many environments, women composers have unquestionably had an embarrassingly tough time of it but neither that fact nor any of the other nonsense about "masculine" and "feminine" musical expression on the part of composers of any gender have ever impacted either on those difficulties that women composers have faced or on the kinds of music that they write; as I've said before (and, in so doing, I apologise duly for singling out particular names), if people can't get their unprejudiced heads around the creative gifts of Ethel Smyth, Lili Boulanger, Grażyna Bacewicz and others without starting to think about gender issues, then they, rather than any of the composers themselves, have a problem which only they can resolve for thmselves provided that they're willing to try to do so.

[teamsaint]

All such perceptive comments! - and all beyond reasonable challenge, I have to say; couldn't agree more!

Yes, in many environments, women composers have unquestionably had an embarrassingly tough time of it but neither that fact nor any of the other nonsense about "masculine" and "feminine" musical expression on the part of composers of any gender have ever impacted either on those difficulties that women composers have faced or on the kinds of music that they write; as I've said before (and, in so doing, I apologise duly for singling out particular names), if people can't get their unprejudiced heads around the creative gifts of Ethel Smyth, Lili Boulanger, Grażyna Bacewicz and others without starting to think about gender issues, then they, rather than any of the composers themselves, have a problem which only they can resolve for thmselves provided that they're willing to try to do so.

But the gender issues are there, as are so many issues in so much music. We don't just ignore those issues, backgrounds, drivers. And those issues frequently ( usually?) increase our appreciation. They aren't a problem for the listener, unless we let them become so.

Having not tried very hard at all to think of one, an example of a musician whose music seems to me to embody something very clearly female , ( and sound somehow female) is Kate Bush. But then , back to the blind test, listen that music with a male singer ( EG Hounds of Love performed by the Futureheads), and well...not sure the argument/choice stands up.

[Serial_Apologist]

But the gender issues are there, as are so many issues in so much music. We don't just ignore those issues, backgrounds, drivers. And those issues frequently ( usually?) increase our appreciation. They aren't a problem for the listener, unless we let them become so.

Having not tried very hard at all to think of one, an example of a musician whose music seems to me to embody something very clearly female , ( and sound somehow female) is Kate Bush. But then , back to the blind test, listen that music with a male singer ( EG Hounds of Love performed by the Futureheads), and well...not sure the argument/choice stands up.

Thanks, teamsaint. I hadn't expected any support here for my tentative theory that there are masculine and feminine manifestations of creativity in music, just as there are in other arts, and that these would be as equally likely to manifest in music by male composers as female ones just by virtue of the historical reality that it has largely been men who have been transmitted to the historical record as offering new directions. Indeed ahinton who suddenly appears to have recanted cited Faure alongside Debussy in this light; had the discussion been more open to the idea one could have gone on to find other composers' work in which characteristics suggestive in both directions at different stages or in different works might have provided a basis for a new thread. I don't se anything "old fashioned" in these views - quite the contrary, as outside such fringe areas as Rock Against Sexism at the end of the 1970s and in particular Maggie Nicols's initiatives in the community music field, to my knowledge there aren't that many places where they've been discussed even superficially.

Anyway maybe I'm just p*ssed off rather at the moment 'cos for OT reasons Jeremy C doesn't seem to be making a very good fist of his opportunity right now, and Uncle Ken ain't exactly helping.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, teamsaint. I hadn't expected any support here for my tentative theory that there are masculine and feminine manifestations of creativity in music, just as there are in other arts

But was it a "Theory" - even a "tentative" one - S_A? More a barely-supported "hypothesis"? (And the chief "support" - Simpson's "thrustings" - highly subjective?) I would be fascinated to hear specific examples that clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that the Music played in this EMS could only have been written by women - or that Clara Schumann's music is more "feminine" than Robert's (or that Robert's is more "masculine" than hers). It concerns me that using this vocabulary, we might start adopting the sort of preconceptions of gender roles that (I hope) we're trying to demonstrate have no validity.

... these would be as equally likely to manifest in male composers as female ones ... had the discussion been more open to the idea one could have gone on to find other composers' work in which characteristics suggestive in both directions at different stages or in different works might have provided a basis for a new thread.

Then why label them "masculine" and "feminine"? Why ascribe human characteristics (equally applicable to both sexes) as applicable only to men or only to women unless one is wishing to be ironic, presenting terminology one knows to be misleading in order to lead to a conclusion that the terms themselves are ridiculous? But if one is already "there", the words are to my mind "useless" - we need to dump them and get onto the next stage of the argument.

I don't se anything "old fashioned" in these views - quite the contrary, as outside such fringe areas as Rock Against Sexism at the end of the 1970s and in particular Maggie Nicols's initiatives in the community music field, to my knowledge there aren't that many places where they've been discussed even superficially.

I don't know if this is quite what you mean, but Susan McClary's work has ensured that Gender Studies is an essential part of undergraduate Music study - even at Cambridge! And such study and discussion has moved on from McClary's provocatively oversimplified arguments in Feminine Endings - as, of course, has McClary herself. I would also subjectively conceive of ideas from forty years ago that haven't developed as being "old-fashioned". (In the sense that if a "controversial" new idea doesn't develop - doesn't make resonances on other people's thought, doesn't change the way we think about things - then it's just a fashionable flash-in-the-pan. McClary's work has affected culture in positive ways, even if there are grounds for criticizing the pioneering work in which she first set out these new ideas. That was a Theoretical work in the real sense - ideas were made public; the valid aspects were developed, the weaker thoughts argued, adapted, discarded ... )

Anyway maybe I'm just p*ssed off rather at the moment 'cos for OT reasons Jeremy C doesn't seem to be making a very good fist of his opportunity right now, and Uncle Ken ain't exactly helping.

I feel your pain, S_A - I feel your pain! (That, and a 'flu' jab that seems to have gone wrong this year - apologies if I've appeared - or even been - more aggressive than I would wish. I'm genuinely interested and involved in these ideas and activities.

[ahinton]

But the gender issues are there, as are so many issues in so much music. We don't just ignore those issues, backgrounds, drivers. And those issues frequently ( usually?) increase our appreciation. They aren't a problem for the listener, unless we let them become so.

But where is this "there"? - in other words, where are these issues other than in the imaginations of some? Until neuroscience is at a far more advanced stage of development, such issues must surely be confined to the realms of speculation, not least because, as I have pointed out previously, one cannot detect the gender of a composer just by listening to his/her music.

[ahinton]

Thanks, teamsaint. I hadn't expected any support here for my tentative theory that there are masculine and feminine manifestations of creativity in music, just as there are in other arts, and that these would be as equally likely to manifest in music by male composers as female ones just by virtue of the historical reality that it has largely been men who have been transmitted to the historical record as offering new directions. Indeed ahinton who suddenly appears to have recanted cited Faure alongside Debussy in this light; had the discussion been more open to the idea one could have gone on to find other composers' work in which characteristics suggestive in both directions at different stages or in different works might have provided a basis for a new thread.

The purpose of citing Fauré was not to recant! I did so purely because you had mentioned Debussy and, in truth, I wonder why either would be cited, really.

If indeed there are such manifestations, we do not yet know what they are or how they work and, in the meantime, my response to Maconchy's quartets is in no sense dependent upon any such speculative thoughts.

Anyway maybe I'm just p*ssed off rather at the moment 'cos for OT reasons Jeremy C doesn't seem to be making a very good fist of his opportunity right now, and Uncle Ken ain't exactly helping.

I know that they're both male but I'd no idea that either was a composer! I do know of a composer whose name is C----N but it ain't him - and I suppose better even Livingstone than Standing Stone, but that's another matter altogether...

[ahinton]

But was it a "Theory" - even a "tentative" one - S_A? More a barely-supported "hypothesis"? (And the chief "support" - Simpson's "thrustings" - highly subjective?) I would be fascinated to hear specific examples that clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that the Music played in this EMS could only have been written by women - or that Clara Schumann's music is more "feminine" than Robert's (or that Robert's is more "masculine" than hers). It concerns me that using this vocabulary, we might start adopting the sort of preconceptions of gender roles that (I hope) we're trying to demonstrate have no validity.


Then why label them "masculine" and "feminine"? Why ascribe human characteristics (equally applicable to both sexes) as applicable only to men or only to women unless one is wishing to be ironic, presenting terminology one knows to be misleading in order to lead to a conclusion that the terms themselves are ridiculous? But if one is already "there", the words are to my mind "useless" - we need to dump them and get onto the next stage of the argument.


I don't know if this is quite what you mean, but Susan McClary's work has ensured that Gender Studies is an essential part of undergraduate Music study - even at Cambridge! And such study and discussion has moved on from McClary's provocatively oversimplified arguments in Feminine Endings - as, of course, has McClary herself. I would also subjectively conceive of ideas from forty years ago that haven't developed as being "old-fashioned". (In the sense that if a "controversial" new idea doesn't develop - doesn't make resonances on other people's thought, doesn't change the way we think about things - then it's just a fashionable flash-in-the-pan. McClary's work has affected culture in positive ways, even if there are grounds for criticizing the pioneering work in which she first set out these new ideas. That was a Theoretical work in the real sense - ideas were made public; the valid aspects were developed, the weaker thoughts argued, adapted, discarded ... )


I feel your pain, S_A - I feel your pain! (That, and a 'flu' jab that seems to have gone wrong this year - apologies if I've appeared - or even been - more aggressive than I would wish. I'm genuinely interested and involved in these ideas and activities.

All expressed with far greater aplomb and eloquence than I could muster; many thanks!

[teamsaint]

But where is this "there"? - in other words, where are these issues other than in the imaginations of some? Until neuroscience is at a far more advanced stage of development, such issues must surely be confined to the realms of speculation, not least because, as I have pointed out previously, one cannot detect the gender of a composer just by listening to his/her music.

An understanding that there are gender and other issues, which we inevitably bring to our appreciation of music, ( and which are also brought to the composition process), and the possible ability to detect the gender of a composer by listening alone, are two completely different things.

[ahinton]

An understanding that there are gender and other issues, which we inevitably bring to our appreciation of music, ( and which are also brought to the composition process), and the possible ability to detect the gender of a composer by listening alone, are two completely different things.

Why? - and how so? Could you please elucidate? And are you implying that the latter is of little or no importance in such a consideration?

Your statement here might be seen as presuming that most people already accept that gender issues impact upon - and/or are brought by listeners to - the appreciation of music and I believe that this is a large and largely unsupported (and perhaps also unsupportable) claim; that it is also brought to the composition process is something that I, as a composer, cannot recognise, however much I might try. Elisabeth Maconchy spoke of being a woman to her family and friends and a composer to her audience (which did makle me wonder if there was so definite a border between them!) and Thea Musgrave has described herself as a woman and a composer but never at one and the same time. One problem with those who endorse these gender issues in musical creation and performance seems to be in their preference to ignore the composers' own take on the subject, irrespective of their gender.

[jean]

And, for what it's worth, I find the terms "masculine" and "feminine" at best useless (and, indeed, quaintly old-fashioned) in discussing aesthetic matters, and the Music in this programme demonstrates why: on a "blind" hearing, there is nothing at all "feminine" (nor, for that matter, "masculine") about any of the works we heard.

I agree with you.

The counter-argument would be that women's nature has been so thoroughly suppressed by the patriarchy that her expression has been forced into a masculine mould. She cannot think as a woman, because the language she must use has been formed by men. This gets us perilously close to the pop psychology of the Mars/Venus type. And I think it's nonsense. As I said earlier to S-A, it ends up being as narrowly prescriptive as what it means to supplant ever was.

...my tentative theory that there are masculine and feminine manifestations of creativity in music, just as there are in other arts, and that these would be as equally likely to manifest in music by male composers as female ones just by virtue of the historical reality that it has largely been men who have been transmitted to the historical record as offering new directions.

Here is a fine article by Deborah Cameron. She's writing about language specifically, but she answers S-A's argument well I think (she is talking about Simon Baron-Cohen, author of The Essential Difference):


...Baron-Cohen is careful to talk about -"people with the female/male brain" rather than "men and women". He stresses that there are men with female brains, women with male brains, and individuals of both sexes with "balanced" brains. He refers to the major brain types as "male" and "female", however, because the tendency is for males to have male brains and females to have female brains. And at many points it becomes clear that in spite of his caveats about not confusing gender with brain sex, he himself is doing exactly that...


.

[teamsaint]

Why? - and how so? Could you please elucidate? And are you implying that the latter is of little or no importance in such a consideration?

Your statement here might be seen as presuming that most people already accept that gender issues impact upon - and/or are brought by listeners to - the appreciation of music and I believe that this is a large and largely unsupported (and perhaps also unsupportable) claim; that it is also brought to the composition process is something that I, as a composer, cannot recognise, however much I might try. Elisabeth Maconchy spoke of being a woman to her family and friends and a composer to her audience (which did makle me wonder if there was so definite a border between them!) and Thea Musgrave has described herself as a woman and a composer but never at one and the same time. One problem with those who endorse these gender issues in musical creation and performance seems to be in their preference to ignore the composers' own take on the subject, irrespective of their gender.

I am not assuming that gender issues are of equal importance to all composers or listeners . That does 't mean that they are not important, aren't significant to many.
And I am certainly not ignoring the composers take on the subject.( if I was I don't think I would really have bothered with my post concerning the Slits and the Raincoats).

[ahinton]

I agree with you.

As do I.

The counter-argument would be that women's nature has been so thoroughly suppressed by the patriarchy that her expression has been forced into a masculine mould. She cannot think as a woman, because the language she must use has been formed by men. This gets us perilously close to the pop psychology of the Mars/Venus type. And I think it's nonsense. As I said earlier to S-A, it ends up being as narrowly prescriptive as what it means to supplant ever was.

This is indeed true, although I don't think that it's necessarily quite the whole story where gender and musical creation and performance is concerned.

Here is a fine article by Deborah Cameron. She's writing about language specifically, but she answers S-A's argument well I think (she is talking about Simon Baron-Cohen, author of The Essential Difference):
...Baron-Cohen is careful to talk about -"people with the female/male brain" rather than "men and women". He stresses that there are men with female brains, women with male brains, and individuals of both sexes with "balanced" brains. He refers to the major brain types as "male" and "female", however, because the tendency is for males to have male brains and females to have female brains. And at many points it becomes clear that in spite of his caveats about not confusing gender with brain sex, he himself is doing exactly that....

This is also true, but it leads on, I think (in the present context) to the ability of those of either gender and with any of those brain types being able to understand and identify what makes those brain types tick and how, so that they can replicate their respective functionalities; the arguments here centre around not only the fact that one cannot identify the gender of a composer merely by listening to his/her music but also that the notion of trying to prove that the music of Farrenc / Clara Schumann / Fanny Mendelsshon / Alma Mahler or any other female composer is of necessity or deliberately "feminine", because just as an actor can portray many different characters, so a composer can be capable of writing both "feminine" and "masculine" music (were there such a thing in the first place), which fact leads me back to the suspicion that there's no such thing as "feminine" and "masculine" ways of musical creation and that such suspicion is not undermined by Prof. Baron-Cohen's interesting observations about brain types. It is, as I've previously suggested, in his profession (neuroscience) that answers might eventually be found to these vexed and as yet unanswerable questions.

And what of the performers? Do Martha Argerich or Alina Ibragimova play like women? Do Maurizio Pollini or Maxim Vengerov play like men? If so, in what characteristics of their respective playing can such differences be identified? And does it make any difference in any of those cases (or indeed any others) when the music being performed has been composed by a woman rather than by a man?

I note, incidentally, that Ms Cameron is described as "Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication"; I couldn't possibly comment(!)...

[jean]

I note, incidentally, that Ms Cameron is described as "Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication"; I couldn't possibly comment(!)...

I know, it's very unfortunate. But the money to fund these academic posts has to come from somewhere, and the men have all the money...

I read and admired her work long before she was tainted by such an association.

[ahinton]

I am not assuming that gender issues are of equal importance to all composers or listeners . That does 't mean that they are not important, aren't significant to many.

But the question is surely why they are "significant to many"? - in other words, is it because of received opinion or rational response to demonstrable facts?

And I am certainly not ignoring the composers take on the subject

So what do you think about the two examples that I cited?

One might go on to ask whether women composers who have been taught by women composers write differently to those who have been taught by men - and then what of the music of male composers who have been taught by women? And so on and so on. But what can the answers be and how might they be arrived at in such a way as to create a consensus by reason of them being provable?

[ahinton]

I know, it's very unfortunate. But the money to fund these academic posts has to come from somewhere, and the men have all the money...

The money to fund composers has to come from somewhere, too (doesn't it?)...