Keeping Score: The Odds Against 19th-Century Female Composers Like Georgiana Darcy

As a pianist and a composer who aspired to a career, Georgiana faced unimaginable hurdles in the early 19th century. It was generally accepted that women were not capable of playing professionally in an orchestra or ensemble—although “accomplished” young women were frequently called upon to play the piano in family gatherings and social settings. And the idea that a woman might compose a large-scale, complex work was, quite simply, out of the question.

In the second act of Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley, when Georgiana reveals that she has joined with other female artists to create “The Society for Women Musicians,” art mirrors life; in Britain in 1839, a group of women musicians did indeed band together as the Royal Society of Female Musicians.

Still, women’s progress as composers was very slow. Take, for example, the reviews and remarks that greeted the works of mid-19thcentury French composer Louise Farrenc; she was damned with faint praise like “It is such a rarity for a woman to compose symphonies of real talent,” a quote from a review in a renowned journal in 1851. Hector Berlioz, Farrenc’s far more famous male counterpart, acknowledged one of her works as “well written,” but qualified his remarks with “and orchestrated with a talent rare among women.” Most of her contemporaries measured Farrenc’s work against that of the male composers of the day; one wrote of Farrenc’s First Symphony, with astonishment, “The dominant quality of this work, composed by a woman, is precisely what one would least expect to find. There is more power than delicacy.” Worse still, critics characterized Farrenc’s music with tired, and even insulting, female sterotypes: “By the magic of her musical palette, the composer envelops you with nocturnal images, at once mysterious and blissful.”

Even the most renowned female musical artist of Georgiana’s time, German pianist and composer Clara Wieck, found sustained success unattainable. A child prodigy, she was so famous by the age of 20 that her sold-out concerts turned away droves of passionate fans. In Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso (Clarion Books), biographer Susan Reich wrote: “Restaurants served a cake named after her, “torte à la Wieck,” a delicate pastry layered with whipped cream and adorned with swirls and rosettes. People rushed to order this ‘ethereal, light dessert that flew into the mouth of the eater.’” Clara Wieck’s marriage to composer Robert Schumann in 1840 led to some early inspired collaborations, but the demands of their growing family—I eight children in all—put an early stop to her composing career. She wrote, “I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea. A woman must not desire to compose—there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?” Today, Clara Schumann is one of the few 19th-century female composers whose works

Composer Louise Farrenc (née Jeanne-Louise Dumont), c. 1855 Bibliothèque nationale de France

are still performed by major artists and orchestras, but they are far overshadowed by the continuing popularity of her husband’s (and their male composer contemporaries’) works.

Even today, nearly a century and a half after Georgiana’s time, music by women composers takes a back seat to work by males. A survey of the 22 largest American orchestras showed that only 1.8 per cent of the total pieces performed in the 2014–2015 concert season were by women overall; and among music by living composers, only 14.3 per cent of works played were by women. A more recent survey of 15 major world orchestras revealed that only 3.6 per cent of the total pieces performed in the 2019–2020 season were composed by women; and of all of their concert programs, only 8.2 per cent included at least one piece by a woman.

Georgiana’s passionate declaration still demands champions: “Music is a universal language. And women should have a voice in all things universal as they are not only participants but creators in this world. Women deserve meaning, and for the women in this society, music is meaning. If a world ruled by men does not include us, we must create a space for ourselves or else forgo what is universally ours, and that I refuse to do. Music belongs to me just as much as it does to any man.”

Square piano, circa 1835

Want to learn more about great women composers? Check out these resources: www.amodernreveal.com/links www.classical-music.com/composers/most-famous-female-composers/ www.cpr.org/2021/03/12/marin-alsop-10-women-composers-you-should-know/ www.capradio.org/music/classical/2021/03/02/ear-to-ear-celebrating-womens-historymonth-with-female-composers/ www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/arts/music/classical-music-farrenc.html