DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION

The women composers of the Romantic era would always contend with the public eye as just that–women composers. After funding, publishing, and booking, the critics' words filtered through patriarchal frameworks. The assumption was always that composition was a masculine art form. Sometimes women’s works were too dainty to be considered good music; however, the pieces that packed a punch were labeled too masculine to have been written by a woman in good taste. If women composers wrote art songs or parlor music, these works were not considered seriously. If they wrote orchestral or symphonic works, the compositions were considered inappropriate for their sex. The ever moving target of the music industry was a product of the times and played into the larger struggles for women's rights across the US and Europe. Women of the 19th and 20th centuries began to shape public opinion and policy, and women composers were no exception.

Today, music schools and opera houses prioritize celebrating the choral, symphonic, and orchestral canon of J. S. Bach, but rarely do they acknowledge why. Using her status and sphere of influence, Fanny Hensel helped to create the Bach Revival of 19th century Germany salon social scene. This solidified a collection of Bach’s musical works which is used today (Dunbar 2011, 110). Historians have often attributed the novel programmatic piano genre of the Romantic era to Felix Mendelssohn, but contemporary critics acknowledged Fanny Hensel as a trendsetter, partially due to her influence on her brother’s work.

In the US and Europe, the women’s right to vote came to the forefront of public taste and policy in the Romantic era. In the US, Amy Beach became a symbol for suffragists. From her public responses to sexist music critics to her wildly successful career, her music and name was inspirational to American women fighting for the right to vote. Most iconic was Dame Ethel Smyth. As her career thrived, she lost her only male lover and patron, Henry Brewster. In this shift, she took to the UK suffrage movement by advocating, composing, and marching. As an openly Queer composer, writer, and organizer, her life and music became a symbol of the movement, with three notable pieces living on to represent this time in history–Laggard Dawn, 1910, and most frequently sung at rallies, MarchoftheWomen (Gates 1992, 160-161).

Additionally, her friendships and romances with notable women artists of the Romantic era catalyzed her to become a Queer icon around the world (Brooklyn Museum, n.d.).

Honoring their Legacies in Choral Classrooms

Beach, Hensel, Schumann, and Smyth lived in different places and at different times throughout the Romantic era. The women composers of this era were not monolithic. Their stories shared common threads and vast differences and deserve to be told. Their music lives and breathes in the canon. How can choral directors ensure their repertoire and stories continue in our classrooms?

At the elementary level, listening and moving is a powerful tool for musical development. Consider an activity with Ethel Smyth’s The Boatswain's Mate, Overture for students to personify different characters at sea, different styles of movement related to the expressive tools of the orchestra, and the different emotional characters of the six minute work. Pair with a story about her being kicked out of her home for pursuing her dreams, only to one day be recognized by the English Royal Family for her music.

For a middle school choral program, unison music can engage students quickly, develop unified tone and expression, and offer an incredible vehicle for storytelling. Programming Clara Schumann’s Die Lorelei would surprise an audience and captivate singers with the drive of the piano’s left hand and the sinister melodies over minor harmonies. The entire piece sits well in the middle of the voice, although alternatives (or a transposition) would be recommended for the two G5s towards the end.

In my time teaching high school choir, my students and I often struggled to find meaningful duet pieces that hadn’t been overdone. For singers looking for a challenge, consider handing them Amy Beach’s Give Me Not Love, Op.61 to explore rich melodies, accessible harmonies, and contrasting expressions. Pair this with an assignment to discover the poet, Florence Coates, looking for similarities and differences in the composer and poet's legacies.

For a tenor-bass chorus, consider Amy Beach’s Sea Fever; for a treble chorus, Ethel Smyth’s The March of the Women. Both pieces are powerful and evoke sentiments of specific time and place for each composer. This which would tie into incredible history lessons of travel, longing, struggle, and suffrage. For a mixed chorus ready to sing a cappella works, Clara Schumann’s Abendfeier in Venedig is lush in harmony and shockingly accessible considering her typical