DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION COLUMN INCLUSION COLUMN

For this issue we take a closer look at women composers in the Romantic era and explore how the analysis of gender, patriarchy, and feminism can aid as crucial tools in facilitating musically and culturally nuanced, informed, and conscious rehearsals and performance. Colin Cossi does a deep dive into the lives of Amy Beach, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Weick Schumann, and Dame Ethel Smyth, and explains how these women navigated their careers and craft amongst clear structures of oppression, and how we as choral artists can bring their works to life in informed ways. Enjoy!

Jace Kaholokula Saplan, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee Chair

Beach, Hensel, Schumann, Smyth– The Successes and Struggles of Four Romantic Era Women Composers

BY COLIN COSSI

The Romantic Era of choral and instrumental music was a time of innovation, societal shift, and struggle. The choral canon of this era has long prioritized the music of men, often mentioning a few women in the terms of wives and sisters. But women composers and performers of the Romantic era stand strong without comparison.

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was a prolific composer whose social impact rippled across Berlin, Europe, and the globe, shaping the way we view and prioritize music to this day (Dunbar 2011, 110).

Amy Beach influenced choral and instrumental music culture of the east coast United States and left an iconic legacy for the US and beyond (Ammer 2001, 101). Unlike many of her contemporaries, she was given her roses while she could smell them.

Traveling the world, Clara Weick Schumann was a piano prodigy with a compositional output impressive enough to weave a social network with the other major composers of her day, in a time where travel and influence was no small feat (Dunbar 2011, 122).

Dame Ethel Smyth was an openly Queer multihyphenate: composer, writer, activist, and organizer. Her career had many chapters which left a legacy of music that aided women’s suffrage in England. What barriers did the women composers of the Romantic Era face? Did they have shared strategies in breaking those barriers? How can we honor those legacies in a 21st century choral program?

A Brief History of Women and Musical Career

Before one can comprehend their lineage, one should contextualize the lives, struggles, and work of women musicians approaching the Romantic era. Western choral music traces its historical roots to ritual singing for Christian worship, codified by the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church created certain barriers towards women in music for centuries. In 1676, Pope Innocent XI issued a decree to prevent women from having musical careers in all of Chistendom (Drinker 1948, 232). Castrati created a viable alternative to women singers until the genesis of opera necessitated performances by women. As operatic roles became more dramatic and the wide variety of women's vocal colors altered the landscape of audience taste, women became the more sought after performers for Soprano and Alto roles, until castration was finally outlawed under Napoleonic law (Drinker 1948, 233). In Medieval times, proximity to the convent cultivated women composers like Hildegard von Bingen influence and musical lineage. In the Renaissance era, nobility were an access point for an incredibly exclusive group of women to engage with composition and performance, from Maddalena Casulana and Vittoria Alioti, to Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I of England (Ammer 2001, 93). The beginning of a sociopolitical shift in the Baroque era emerged as schools for girls focused on developing their musical skills. Notable examples include Jean Baptiste Lully partnering with King Louis XIV, and the German aristocracy and Vivaldi’s opsidales (Drinker 1948, 236). In the Romantic era, women of privileged families were trained in the art of music.