Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927): 2-6/12/24

[kindofblue]

Hmmm, the charge of mysogyny is I believe justified. Women composers are being held to a higher standard, and their appearance on any programme, not just COTW, appears to be contingent on them being better than an average male composer, and, even more more ludicrous, that they should only be heard when the vat of middling male composers has been emptied. Tosh. Over the years I have read negative comments about male composers, performers, presenters, leading figures in the music industry, alive or dead, and on not one single occasion has their gender been highlighted as a factor. Not once. Ever. Yet a female composer, or her life, can trigger comments suggesting that this is merely an exercise in box-ticking, possibly following some 'woke' agenda, if she is perhaps not of the first rank. A case in point; some time ago Carl Davis was COTW, and there was a great deal of negative reaction to the week's programmes. The comments in the main focused on the quality of his work, and some others made suggestions as to more 'worthy' names. So far so good. I can though recall no instance of Davis's gender being a cause for concern, and certainly no hint of 'What, another mediocre male in COTW?! There are so many women voices to be heard, why this?'

When a male composer is deemed below par, the case is made on musical grounds, when it's a woman her gender is in some an issue. And I for one am interested in the life of someone who has had to face down prejudice and create music or any other art form in spite of how one might be perceived, this is most certainly an instance of suffering for one's art. It is a source of sadness to me to think of the frustrated talents that were squashed in their infancy because of one's place in society.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Hmmm, the charge of mysogyny is I believe justified. Women composers are being held to a higher standard, and their appearance on any programme, not just COTW, appears to be contingent on them being better than an average male composer, and, even more more ludicrous, that they should only be heard when the vat of middling male composers has been emptied. Tosh. Over the years I have read negative comments about male composers, performers, presenters, leading figures in the music industry, alive or dead, and on not one single occasion has their gender been highlighted as a factor. Not once. Ever. Yet a female composer, or her life, can trigger comments suggesting that this is merely an exercise in box-ticking, possibly following some 'woke' agenda, if she is perhaps not of the first rank. A case in point; some time ago Carl Davis was COTW, and there was a great deal of negative reaction to the week's programmes. The comments in the main focused on the quality of his work, and some others made suggestions as to more 'worthy' names. So far so good. I can though recall no instance of Davis's gender being a cause for concern, and certainly no hint of 'What, another mediocre male in COTW?! There are so many women voices to be heard, why this?'

When a male composer is deemed below par, the case is made on musical grounds, when it's a woman her gender is in some an issue. And I for one am interested in the life of someone who has had to face down prejudice and create music or any other art form in spite of how one might be perceived, this is most certainly an instance of suffering for one's art. It is a source of sadness to me to think of the frustrated talents that were squashed in their infancy because of one's place in society.

I went through a lot of the comments on the forum earlier and it’s remarkable how very few comments there are on any composer. To the point one wonders how many forumites listen to the series at all. I listen to about 80 per cent of the programmes and I’ve had my ears opened to the quality of composers like Errolyn Warren, Tailleferre , Chaminade by a week long exposure to their work. However I’m slightly tired of the BBC always putting their music in the context of their personal struggle when I’m much more interested in their music - which is incidentally rarely paid the respect of even the most cursory analysis . To be fair male composers are treated no better.

[french frank]

Agreed! COTW is primarily a story-telling format and (speaking as a non-woke white bloke) it seems to me that the stories of women who managed to carve out careers as composers in earlier eras are distinctly more interesting than those of men who produced mediocre music. I welcome this week’s series (of which I’ve only heard the first so far).

Yes, I think all that's needed is a simple mental adjustment about what the programme's purpose is. As a documentary programme it's as much about the life and times as the music. That said, I realise it's too much to ask!

[CallMePaul]

Capella Romana's recording of music by Kassianí (aka Kassía, 810-65) arrived this morning. I have yet to play it in full, but what I have heard is certainly deserving of a wider audience - EMS producers and Hannah French are you reading this? I have not ruled out buying VocalMe's recording of her music - fromwhat I have heard, they take a very different approach from Capella Romana.

[smittims]

I believe you've made a 'Straw Man', there, kindofblue. Female composers are not held to a higher standard than male . We're just as critical of poor , uninventive, overpraised music by men. On the contrary, when a male composer fails, it's always because of some shortcoming: lack of talent, lack of a champion, lack of social skills to persaude concert promoters etc. But when a female composer fails, we always hear that it's because of 'misogyny'. Nowadays this tired old word is trotted out whenever a man says something a woman disagrees with. It's time to 'call it out' .

[french frank]

smittims,you don't appear to have any interest in understanding the differing life situations experienced by men and women throughout the ages. Why do we even discuss 'women composers'? Composers are composers. Actors are actors. Poets are poets. Perhaps we should reintroduce the old distinctive titles and speak of composeresses?

[Ein Heldenleben]

smittims,you don't appear to have any interest in understanding the differing life situations experienced by men and women throughout the ages. Why do we even discuss 'women composers'? Composers are composers. Actors are actors. Poets are poets. Perhaps we should reintroduce the old distinctive titles and speak of composeresses?

I couldn’t agree more (though not on Composeress). The standard approach on COTW is to see every life story through the “struggle”, story trope - against male establishment prejudice , racial prejudice , alcoholism , madness , class and poverty struggle (this is much rarer as a story line though arguably the most significant of all ) . Of course that struggle story is the essence of most fiction from the Odyssey onwards. But no one ever asked the composers (as they’re dead) whether they want their life reduced to a story refracted through the prism of our social and cultural assumptions or whether they’re rather have their music discussed as music or even the social and cultural impact their music has had, I’m not saying the series should ignore all these things like struggle but to use an appropriate metaphor the stylus is getting stuck in groove.

[Master Jacques]

And I for one am interested in the life of someone who has had to face down prejudice and create music or any other art form in spite of how one might be perceived, this is most certainly an instance of suffering for one's art. It is a source of sadness to me to think of the frustrated talents that were squashed in their infancy because of one's place in society.

Quite so. But have you noticed how many of these fashionably valorised, very minor nineteenth-century composers had lower class origins? Quite. Zero.

'Suffering for one's art' is no guarantee of talent, still less of entitlement to be 'heard'. In this case, the chosen ones tend to come from well-heeled, upper middle-class elites with spare cash and time on their hands. Some are minor aristocrats. The composers (of either sex) who really had it tough, without money or family connections, have been left just as much in the dark as they ever were. And we don't have these affecting details of their bigged-up biographical stories to spin with.

Hagiography has bedevilled the arts, it's true, ever since the original, nameless creators of the renaissance were replaced by 'names'. Since then, biog-marketing has played a large role in selling artists, composers and writers; but in music, at least, qualitative judgement has the nasty habit of knocking biographical special pleading out of the ring. And as Ein Heldenleben says, what generally seems to be lacking in these affecting sob stories is any analysis of the actual music - very often, sadly, because there is nothing to say.

We should be honest about this, and remain wary of stamping every age, time and condition with our own time's brand of slick, sentimental fantasy.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Quite so. But have you noticed how many of these fashionably valorised, very minor nineteenth-century composers had lower class origins? Quite. Zero.

'Suffering for one's art' is no guarantee of talent, still less of entitlement to be 'heard'. In this case, the chosen ones tend to come from well-heeled, upper middle-class elites with spare cash and time on their hands. Some are minor aristocrats. The composers (of either sex) who really had it tough, without money or family connections, have been left just as much in the dark as they ever were. And we don't have these affecting details of their bigged-up biographical stories to spin with.

Hagiography has bedevilled the arts, it's true, ever since the original, nameless creators of the renaissance were replaced by 'names'. Since then, biog-marketing has played a large role in selling artists, composers and writers; but in music, at least, qualitative judgement has the nasty habit of knocking biographical special pleading out of the ring. And as Ein Heldenleben says, what generally seems to be lacking in these affecting sob stories is any analysis of the actual music - very often, sadly, because there is nothing to say.

We should be honest about this, and remain wary of stamping every age, time and condition with our own time's brand of slick, sentimental fantasy.

Very well put MJ.
In literary criticism we were always taught that the life story of the artist is irrelevant to critical evaluation of their work. That always struck me as bit harsh in the case of Yeats where so much of the work relates to contemporary Ireland but absolutely right for Shakespeare where , thankfully , all the facts (largely law cases) about his life can be written in a page of A4.

[Master Jacques]

smittims,you don't appear to have any interest in understanding the differing life situations experienced by men and women throughout the ages. Why do we even discuss 'women composers'? Composers are composers. Actors are actors. Poets are poets. Perhaps we should reintroduce the old distinctive titles and speak of composeresses?

Or perhaps we should not. I for one feel no guilt about my almost total lack of interest in written or reported biographies, bio-pics, or bio-yoghurts. I can never rid myself of the suspicion that these manufactured 'stories' (or the current cliché, 'life journeys') get in the way of the art itself, and very often diminish it. (Shostakovich symphonies are a case in point, but I won't start that hare here!)

So I agree wholly with you, in feeling that we should never talk of a 'woman composer' - you might have seen that I try not to do this in any of my own posts, finding sex as irrelevant to a composer's art as the fact they might have been born in Peckham or Prestbury.

[french frank]

You have strong views, well explained Master J. But when you said earlier that CotW 'has become a cultural embarrassment, and ought to be scrapped' I'm sure the current management would have no difficulty in accommodating your wish by extending Classical Live by an extra hour, or starting In Tune an hour earlier. There are surely worse things about the current R3 than these over-praised third-rate composers (men or women) - unless you love the presenter-led musical chat 'n' snippets? Treat the music as documentary and allow it to change or reinforce your own opinions. Enjoy the experience of having proof that you were right, and possibly even the occasional surprise.

[Master Jacques]

Very well put MJ.
In literary criticism we were always taught that the life story of the artist is irrelevant to critical evaluation of their work. That always struck me as bit harsh in the case of Yeats where so much of the work relates to contemporary Ireland but absolutely right for Shakespeare where , thankfully , all the facts (largely law cases) about his life can be written in a page of A4.

Yes indeed, F. R. Leavis still reigns!

One particularly interesting exercise, for me, is to try and move away from Leavis, by examining cases where the biography is inextricably linked with the art, as its subject. This is not true of many composers, as it needs a facility in the written word which only Berlioz (among household names) possessed. I often wonder what his music would amount to without its biographical component in the listener's mind. My answer - like that of his own French classicist contemporaries - is, not a hill of beans.

It's rather the same case with Mahler, who has reached his current sainted status for biographical as much as musical reasons.

[Master Jacques]

You have strong views, well explained Master J. But when you said earlier that CotW 'has become a cultural embarrassment, and ought to be scrapped' I'm sure the current management would have no difficulty in accommodating your wish by extending Classical Live by an extra hour, or starting In Tune an hour earlier. There are surely worse things about the current R3 than these over-praised third-rate composers (men or women) - unless you love the presenter-led musical chat 'n' snippets? Treat the music as documentary and allow it to change or reinforce your own opinions. Enjoy the experience of having proof that you were right, and possibly even the occasional surprise.

Thank you, french frank. The trouble is, that Composer of the Week only differs from those other horrors, these days, in its addition of - sometimes lazily inaccurate, or skewed - life stories. I dimly recall a time where more complete works, and fewer single movements or extracts, was the norm. We live in a different world, and the programme's time has, I think, passed.

[kernelbogey]

[COLOR=#3300ff]Agreed! COTW is primarily a story-telling format and (speaking as a non-woke white bloke) it seems to me that the stories of women who managed to carve out careers as composers in earlier eras are distinctly more interesting than those of men who produced mediocre music....COLOR]

"I agree with Nick."

The rise of feminism in my lifetime - well, in the second half of my lifetime - is a beacon of hope for humanity in my view. I imagine that would be true for many if not all who post here. The struggles of women like Le Beau - in the 1850s! - are also a beacon of hope.

In my view, and in my experience, it is easy to get caught in unconscious misogyny, and we must guard against it.

[Master Jacques]

In my view, and in my experience, it is easy to get caught in unconscious misogyny, and we must guard against it.

I am sure you'd agree, that 'unconscious [fill in the blank-ism]' is notoriously the last bastion for those whose campaigning positions fail to stand up to fact, and who resort to amateur psychology instead. The slur relies on theories of the 'unconscious' which are to say the least, open to argument, and can come over as an easy put-down.