Women's History Month

The month of March puts the spotlight on Women Composers.

In 1880 the controversial book, "Women in Music" written by George P. Upton was published. The following are excerpts from this book that we can laugh at or learn from as we contemplate or celebrate Women Composers Month.

"The writer does not hope to solve the problem; but only to offer such hints as suggest themselves, leaving to others better versed in the mysteries of the female nature and in the peculiar powers and habits of life necessary to develop a great composer, to discover the exact reasons why no woman has ever created an important and enduring work in music."

"At the first glance, it would seem that musical composition is a province in which woman should excel. It may be laid down, as a fundamental and indisputable proposition, that music is the interpreter and the language of the emotions. It strikes every note in the gamut of human nature, from ecstatic joy to profound despair. It inspires, enrages, elevates, saddens cheers, and soothes the soul as no other one of the arts can. It gives voice to love, expression to passion, lends glory to every art, and performs its loftiest homage as the handmaid of religion. Why is it, then, that woman, who possesses all these attributes in a more marked degree than man, who is the inspiration of love, who has a more powerful and at the same time more delicate emotional force than man, who is artistic by temperament, whose whole organism is sensitively strung, and who is religious by nature,__ how is it that woman, with all these attributes of music in her nature, is receptive rather than creative? How is it that music only comes to her as a balm, a rest, or a solace of happiness among her pleasures and her sorrows, her commonplaces and her conventionalities, and that it does not have its origin in her? In other fields of art woman has been creative. Rosa Bonheur is man's equal upon canvas. Harriet Hosmer has made the marble live with a man's truth and force and skill. Mrs. Browning in poetry, Mary Somerville in science, George sand, Charlottle Bronte, and Madame De Stael in fiction, have successfully rivaled man in their fields of labor, . . These may all stand as types of creative power; but who is to represent woman in music?

"While a few women, during the last two centuries, have created a few works, now utterly unknown, no woman during that time has written a piece of music that is in the modern repertory."

Here are a few of the reasons stated by Upton why a woman has no hope of success in composition.

"There is scarcely a composer know to fame, and whose works are destined to endure, who lived long enough to see his music appreciated and accepted by the world for what it was really worth. Such fierce struggles and overwhelming discouragements, such pitiless storms of fate and cruel assaults of poverty, in the pursuit of art, woman is not calculated to endure. If her triumph could be instant, if work after work were not to be assailed, scoffed at, and rejected, there would be more hope for her success in composition: but instant triumphs are not the rewards of great composers.

. . .For these and many other reasons growing out of the peculiar organization of woman, the sphere in which she moves, the training which she receives, and the duties she has to fulfill, it does not seem that woman will ever originate music in its fullest and grandest harmonic forms. She will always be the recipient and interpreter, but there is little hope she will be the creator."

We must wonder why Upton overlooks Hildegard (1098-1179); Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (1666-1729), who was honored by King Louis XIV on a medal; Marianne von Martinez (1744-1812); Maria Theresia Von Paradis (1759-1824); Maria Agata Szymanowska (1789-1831); Fanny Cecile Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847); Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896); Teresa Carreno (1853-1917) (she composed many pieces during Upton's lifetime) and others.

In the years following Upton's book, there have been numerous successful composers such as: Amy Beach, born in 1867, who was the first woman in America to compose a symphony, an opera, a piano concerto and hundreds of other works.

Although many of Upton's assessments of women are stereotypes and out dated, his comment that "there is not a piece of music composed by a woman in the modern repertory", is unfortunately still ringing true today.

We can only hope that there will be many new woman composers who will emerge and compose in the abundance and magnificence of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

We have come a long way and still have a long way to go.