From prima donna to teacher. Two female pioneers in singing education in the Nineteenth Century: Virginia Boccabadati and Matilde Esteban (original) (raw)
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PROGRAMA 2021 2 Women and Music in the Early Modern Age
Women and Music in the Early Modern Age July 2nd - 4th, 2021, Queluz Queluz National Palace (Portugal) International Conference Organization : Divino Sospiro – Centro de Estudos Musicais Setecentistas de Portugal Website : The 9th international conference at the Queluz National Palace organized by DS-CEMSP aims to investigate the role of women in the musical and theatrical worlds of the early modern age, with special reference to the 17th and 18th centuries. The conference promotes research into the careers of women as impresarios, singers, actresses, composers, no matter how resounding their activity was in their heydays. Emphasis is also placed on their travels, contacts, and repertoires, and on the strategies adopted by female patronage in order to support the organization (and the memory) of theatrical and musical events throughout the continent. Female performers: singers, instrumentalists, dancers and impresarios. Their roles and repertoires. Female composers, librettists and choreographers. The feminine in music: women as subjects in the musical literature. Women as music and theatre patrons. Political uses of female musical patronage. The importance of music in the education of aristocratic and royal women. The female public. Women as music collectors. Women and music sociabilities.
Rediscovered Sisters: Women (and) Singer-songwriters in Italy
The Singer-Songwriter in Europe: Paradigms, Politics and Place, edited by Stuart Green and Isabelle Marc, 2016, pp. 79-91.
The singer-songwriter has been the focus of most discourses on aesthetic values in Italian popular music since his appearance in the early 1960s; an ideology of authorship has shaped the way audiences have made sense of popular music in Italy since then. The perceived connection between the canzone d’autore genre and literature authenticated the former as the quintessential Italian “art song”, and the cantautori (singer-songwriters) as “true poets” (Tomatis, 2013). Authorship as a form of authentication is not to be found in Italian popular music only. Yet, its centrality in the history of Italian canzone convincingly points it out as a national peculiarity. Despite the existence of a feminine counterpart to the cantautore, both in the Italian language and Italian popular music (the cantautrice), the canzone d’autore has always been a men’s genre. Male singer-songwriters are unquestionably the norm in the canzone d’autore, while female are deviations from that norm. Even if a small number of records by female singer-songwriters were released during the 1960s and 1970s, a tradition of women’s canzone d’autore only established itself in the last decades, and cantautrici are still a minority. Although the canzone d’autore is arguably the most common topic in the field of Italian popular music studies, no attention at all has been paid to this imbalance. This chapter should not be read neither as a (possibly poor) attempt of writing a feminist history of the canzone d’autore, nor as an (even poorer) effort to provide a feminist account on Italian popular music history. Yet, analytical tools developed by feminist historians can be usefully employed for the purpose of a more attentive and conscious methodology for the study of popular music histories (Scott, 1988), and especially to shed light on how gender plays a role in the way people organize music, also through the formulation of value judgements which are gender-biased. Genre conventions (Fabbri, 2012) can be structured around gender, and include gender positions.
Current Musicology, 2018
Current Musicology is a leading journal for scholarly research on music. We publish articles and book reviews in the fields of historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and philosophy of music. Submissions must be made electronically. One copy of the article, a 250-word abstract, and a cover letter should be submitted through the journal's online submissions platform at https://currentmusicology. columbia.edu/submit-a-manuscript. Because submissions are reviewed anonymously, the author's name should appear in a cover letter but not in the manuscripts.
2019
I confess I enjoyed accentuating the character, perhaps as a provocation!" Thus Isabelle Aboulker, a renowned contemporary French composer, justified setting a viciously misogynistic text by Jean de la Fontaine in her song "La femme noyée" (The Drowned Woman). Her comment demonstrates a deliberate strategy for proactively and provocatively engaging with her own problematic cultural history through composition. This is just one of many approaches that contemporary female composers take to the negotiation of gender in their work. This dissertation addresses Aboulker's approach, together with those of Libby Larsen, Caroline Shaw, Pamela Z, and other composers and composer-performers of the current generation to the composition of art songs and vocal music in the twenty-first century. Engaging with musical-textual interpretation, performance studies, and emerging theories of collaborative musicianship, I develop an approach to their work that takes account of both creative musical acts and the social and historical place of the composers in question. My research addresses three central issues in feminist musicological scholarship through the analysis of both notated music and live and recorded performances of art song: first, the relationships and tensions between iii poetic text and musical composition; second, the focus of female bodies in performance as a site for the construction of meaning; and third, the category of the "female composer" as a marked and often derogatory term. Using a variety of examples by women composers with diverse compositional styles, I offer fresh insight into the multifaceted musical experiences of women in performance and composition. My work draws on interdisciplinary methodologies both to destabilize traditional hermeneutic interpretation and to develop a new set of tools for a feminist understanding of musical works by women. Ultimately, I argue, the conventional focus on musical text as the primary object of study is a detriment to more dynamic areas of cultural production. Drawing attention away from the "text," I focus instead on the women and on female body as conduits of composition, performance, listening, and understanding. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been a collaborative effort in every sense. I am deeply indebted to my teachers, subjects, colleagues, and family for their invaluable assistance in completing this research. I want to express my most special and deepest thanks to my advisor and mentor, Rebecca Cypess, whose enthusiasm for my preliminary research launched this entire project. I thank her for her thoughtful questions, her skilled editing, and her deep commitment to me and my work. She has the uncanny ability to help me articulate my own ideas more clearly than I ever could alone, and I am so grateful. As a mentor, she has been instrumental in helping shape my entire identity as a musicologist, and heartily supported all my academic endeavors. This dissertation would not exist without her; I am a better scholar for studying with her, and I am a better person for knowing her. I also want to thank the members of my committee for their thoughtful insight into this project. I am grateful to Eduardo Herrera, who encouraged me from my very first year of study to pursue the projects I cared about and provided me with invaluable resources to do so through coursework and discussion; his mentorship has been indispensable. I extend my thanks to Nancy Rao, who helped me enormously to shape and refine the goals and purposes of this research. I am especially grateful to Nina Eidsheim, who graciously agreed to be my outside reader. Her career and writings have influenced me greatly, and her thoughtful insight into my own research was a true gift. I must also express my gratitude to the composers who selflessly agreed to share their work and experiences with me as part of this project: to Isabelle Aboulker, for welcoming me into her home and providing me with the most expert vocal coaching I've ever received; to Caroline Shaw, for her candor, openness, and generosity in sharing her thoughts and her work, v including unpublished manuscripts and private recordings (and also for knowing where to find good coffee); and to Pamela Z, for granting me a most enlightening and moving interview. Many members of the faculty at Rutgers University have assisted me massively with this work. I extend my thanks to Chris Doll, who in his seminars taught me to be a more critical reader, and provided wonderful feedback on the earliest version of my Isabelle Aboulker case study. I am also grateful to the musicology professors with whom I took coursework during my time at Rutgers, for sharing their knowledge and encouraging my independent thought, especially Doug Johnson, Floyd Grave, and Rufus Hallmark. I am grateful to Steve Kemper for his contributions to my case study on Pamela Z, and to Jonathan Sauceda, Performing Arts Librarian, and Kayo Denda, Librarian for Women's Gender and Sexuality studies for their constant support of my research. I started my academic career as a vocal performance major at the University of Connecticut, where I received my Bachelor's and Master's degrees; I was encouraged and prepared for my leap into musicology by the stellar faculty who supported me. I owe a tremendous debt to Alain Frogley, Peter Kaminsky, and Eric Rice, for the education they provided me, and for encouraging me on this path. I owe special thanks to Connie Rock, who as my most excellent voice teacher and mentor provided me with numerous opportunities and made sure I would never stop singing. My colleagues and classmates at Rutgers have been instrumental in helping me to complete the dissertation. With their friendship and support, I have felt a strong sense of belonging, and that is an enormous help during the often isolated period of dissertation-writing. I am grateful in particular to my quals cohort, Mike Ford and Michael Goetjen, for reading the earliest versions of this project. I am thankful to Lynette Bowring for providing an excellent example and answering all my questions. I must also express my thanks to Taylor Meyers for vi suggesting so much wonderful literature for my bibliography, and to Rachel Horner for her supportive presence at my defense. This dissertation was aided by the direct contribution of a number of remarkable individuals. Mark Leuning beautifully translated and transcribed my interview with Isabelle Aboulker, and Valentine Baron served as my interpreter during our meeting, despite my best attempts to improve my French. I am grateful to William Lewis and Frederique Added of the Franco-American Vocal Academy for introducing me to Mme. Aboulker ten years ago, and for encouraging my research today. I extend my deep gratitude to Denise Von Glahn, for her important scholarship on Libby Larsen, and for taking the time to discuss that work with me. I am also very thankful to Lucy Dhegrae, founder of the Resonant Bodies Festival, for speaking with me at length about her work, and for curating the phenomenal 2018 New York Festival, where I conducted my performance analyses for both Caroline Shaw and Pamela Z. This work could not have been completed if not for the gracious and unconditional support of my family; I have been blessed with an embarrassment of riches. I am grateful to the whole Binaco family for their encouragement of my educational pursuits, and to the Lansang family for welcoming me so readily into their lives as I began my PhD program, and also for all the babysitting. I am thankful for the Zrenda family for raising me and empowering me to pursue my interests as just one of a myriad of overachieving children. I am especially grateful to my beloved, departed grandparents: Dorothy Zrenda, for being a model to us all, and Stephen Zrenda, who during his lifetime worked to instill in me both a passion for music, which stuck fast, and a sense of pragmatism, which, despite his efforts, stuck less well. I extend my deepest and most heartfelt thanks to my husband, Michael, who has been my sounding board, my biggest cheerleader, and my help in all things great and small; his support of my doctoral study and his input on this dissertation cannot be overstated. I am also grateful to my daughter, Cecilia, whose vii energy and enthusiasm for life is deeply inspiring; I have gleaned a surprising amount of perspective from a two-year-old. Finally, I offer my most profound gratitude to my mother, Laurie Zrenda, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. There is, of course, no way to sufficiently thank her for the many gifts she has bestowed upon me, and the unconditional love she has provided. Her generosity knows no bounds, and she has supported me physically, financially, and emotionally in ways I could never repay. This work was possible because of all she provided, and I will remain eternally grateful. viii DEDICATION To my mother, Laurie, who taught me that with love all things are easy.
Journal of Music Criticism, 8, 2024
This paper aims to analyze the presence of female performers in the salons of cultural associations in late 19th-century Granada. To this end, I will focus on the activity of the Escuela de Música para Señoritas (School of Music for Young Ladies) of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country) of Granada which provided musical education exclusively for women, ranging from ornamental instruction to professional preparation over the span of more than fifty years. Its establishment in 1891 served as a true catalyst for the city’s cultural and musical life and laid the groundwork for the future Music Conservatory (established in 1921), whose initial teaching staff was highly feminized, with many of its female teachers having received their training at this school. The Escuela also had a significant influence on the city’s main cultural venues, where its students, especially pianists, performed in evenings and cultural events both during their training and later, as former students who were able to pursue musical careers. Through archival documents and local press, it is possible to trace these women’s activity as performers in the salons of the Real Sociedad Económica and the Centro Artístico y Literario, two of the city’s main cultural associations at the turn of the century. Additionally, their concert activity can be analyzed in other, less conventional venues, such as the salon of the Cámara de Comercio and the salon of the City Council. By applying theoretical frameworks from musicology and gender studies, the presence of women as performers, the repertoires they interpreted, their social impact and visibility, and how their concert activity contributed to advancing their professional musical careers as performers and music educators will be explored.
The Woman Composer Question: Four Case Studies from the Romantic Era
Ed. D, dissertation, University of Toronto, 1992
This dissertation traces the social myth of woman's innate creative inferiority in music through its many transformations: from its roots in Romantic philosophy, through the writings of turn-of-the-century critics, to past and present psychological theories of musical creativity. The case studies of four exceptionally gifted women composers from the Romantic era (Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth and Amy Beach), which form the central part of this investigation, make clear that the dearth of eminent women composers is due not to any innate deficiency in the female mind, but to ideological and institutional constraints directly linked to the social construction of gender. Such barriers include the role that women have been expected to play in society, the prejudices they have encountered in attempting to establish themselves in the male-dominated field of composition, the critical double standard, and psychological obstacles resulting from the internalization of negative societal attitudes toward women's creative potential.
The Woman Composer Question: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives
Kapralova Society Journal, 2006
Through a conspiracy of silence on the part of music historians, coupled with the gender-biased writings of philosophers, music critics and music educators of the past, the age-old myth has been perpetuated that the gift of musical creativity is granted only to males. This article examines some of these writings in order to demonstrate their relationship to both the limited content of music education for women throughout most of the Romantic era--specifically, the lack of adequate instruction in theoretical subjects--and the nineteenth-century double standard in music criticism, which allowed critics to evaluate a woman's compositions in terms of the extent to which they were thought to conform to prevailing stereotypes of ideal femininity.
The book is an important contribution to the social and cultural histories of music and gender. It combines audience, vocal training histories, and performance conventions to show that audiences, performers and composers constructed the gender of operatic characters independently of the biological sex of the performers. A terrific read that amplifies the literature on women and opera, the book spotlights the early nineteenth century history of performance as well as the social constructedness of vocal technique and the longevity of audience memories of sounds and performances. A key contribution to histories of the social and political importance of musical life and soundscape: musical performances do not vanish when they end, after all.