Female Composers

Categories: Classical Music Composers Music

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Between the years 1789 and 1914, commonly known as the long nineteenth century, female composers were not widely known and rarely accepted by society, unable to make as powerful a contribution to art song as they may have done. However, there are a few whose works made it to light decades later and whose names now roll off the tongue as easy as those of their male counterparts, such as Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann and Amy Beach. Their compositions are widely respected today but struggled to make a significant contribution at the time due to prejudices and stereotypes against female composers in this era.

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Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1805, Fanny C?cilie Hensel (ne? Mendelssohn), was a pianist and composer who died in Berlin in 1847. Fanny was not urged to become a professional musician (Briscoe, 2004 :134), similar to most females in her day. There was no prospect of university for women and education was tailored to a more domestic setting, as the belief of the day was that 'the home should be the source and repository of all affections and virtues and woman its guardian angel' (Todd, 2010: 23).

However, Fanny and her sister Rebekah were privileged to have been able to learn much more than many girls due to their family's 'highly cultural and intellectually curious' attitudes (Todd, 2010: 23). Fanny was the eldest of four children and her younger sibling, Felix Mendelssohn, was a renowned composer and pianist who composed in many styles including symphonies, concertos and piano works.

Felix was encouraged by his father to pursue music, unlike his sister.

In a letter to Fanny in 1820 when she was aged fifteen, her father declared, 'Music will perhaps become his [Felix's] profession, while for you it can and must only be an ornament, never the root of your being and doing' (Hensel, 2013: 82). In a letter on her birthday eight years later he appears to still have the same view; 'You must prepare more earnestly and eagerly for your real calling, the only calling of a young woman - I mean the state of a housewife' (Hensel, 2013: 84). This demonstrates his feelings about her becoming a professional musician and composer and that his view was that women should stay at home and men go out to work. Fanny's younger brother, however, did not share the same opinion, with both siblings relying on each other's opinion and input to allow their pieces to be the best they could be.

For example, Fanny offered extensive opinions that benefitted her brothers Melusine Overture Op. 32 (Taylor, 2004 :43) and his oratorio St Paul (Briscoe, 2004 :134). She also pointed out small details, such as criticising his removal of grace notes in the Andante of his 'Italian' Symphony and Felix repaid the favour by pointing out the weakness of his sister's orchestration in her Choleramusik (Briscoe, 2004 :134). Therefore, it could be said that many of the works composed by both siblings would not be as they are today had the other not provided their honest musical opinion. When it comes to having her own works recognised, Fanny would have found it difficult to publish her creations under her own name. Being a woman and the class divide prevented ladies of leisure, such as Fanny, from chasing 'public' professions (Todd, 2003: 176). Nevertheless, she managed to convince Felix to publish a number of her works under his name. The first instance of this is in Felix's Op. 8, where three of the twelve songs for voice and piano were originally written by Fanny, including No. 3 'Italien' (Todd, 2003: 175). Of all of the pieces Felix had published, 'Italien' became the most popular.

It was Queen Victoria's favourite, who insisted on singing it to him during his visit to Buckingham Palace in 1842, where he confessed that this particular piece had actually been written by his older sister (Todd, 2003: 175). In 1829/30 Felix published Op. 9 which also contained three pieces composed by Fanny, however, this was the last time her works were published under his name (Todd, 2003: 224). In 1846 Fanny published a collection of her songs, known as her Op.1, the first time any of her work was published under her own name (Christian, 2018). After Fanny's death her brother was distraught, but it seems likely he took her manuscripts, presumably to have his main publisher arrange for their publication. However, it was not until 1850, after the death of Felix, that the company began to publish his sister's works (Todd, 2010: 352).

Fanny's music was never forgotten by her fellow Germans, with Robert Schumann examining the 'Gartenlieder' for a possible performance by his choral in 1847 and a performance of some lieder by Clara Schumann in 1855. However, the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century remained unaware of the full range of Fanny's portfolio, few suspecting that she produced over 400 compositions in a multitude of genres (Todd, 2010: 358). Overall, during the long nineteenth century, Fanny Hensel was prohibited from making the contribution she would have liked, had she had the ability to publish her work from the beginning. However, despite not being published under her own name, many of the pieces published under her brother's name were loved by many.

Like Fanny, Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, born 1819 in Leipzig and dying 1896 in Frankfurt. Clara was a 'child prodigy' (Briscoe, 2004: 140) whose parents were also gifted musicians and her father is the one noted for providing her musical training (Litzmann, 2013: 3). This could be due to Clara staying with her father, after her parent's divorce, while her mother remarried and settled in Berlin (Litzmann, 2013: 1). Clara's father, left without a wife, 'turned to his five-year-old daughter as the instrument of his musical ambition' (Reich, 1985: 38) and taught Clara everything he could in order to show the world what talent he possessed. This is clear evidence of the male input needed for the success of females within music during the nineteenth century.

Without her father's contribution, Clara would likely never have played a concert of her own. Overall, it seems her father dominated her, as Clara's childhood diaries were started and written in by him until Clara turned eighteen (Reich, 1985: 42). This makes it very difficult to know how Clara herself felt through her childhood but does give us a good insight into her musical progression and achievements. Clara first met Robert Schumann when she was eleven years old, nine years younger than her future husband, when he moved into her house as a student of her father (Reich, 1985: 45). As soon as she turned eighteen Robert proposed, a request she readily accepted. However, Clara's father was not keen on his daughter marrying a man he did not approve of and denied Robert permission to marry her. Nevertheless, Clara and Robert, young and in love, decided to go to court to be granted permission to marry.

Permission was eventually granted, and they married in 1840, the day before Clara's 21st birthday (Litzmann, 2013: XII). Throughout their marriage, Robert and Clara shared musical ideas and studied scores from beloved composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. Robert actively encouraged his wife to compose and catalogue her work, with two of her works published as supplements to the music journal he edited, Neue Zeitschrift fur M?sik (Briscoe, 2004:140). However, she was better known as a pianist, having a concert career spanning over sixty years (Reich, 1985: 258) and performing all over Germany. She even headed to the wider continent in the years before her marriage, where she would play her own compositions, with her inspired works being commended by the 'new romantic' composers of Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt (Briscoe, 2004: 140).

Clara's first published compositions after her marriage was a collection of three songs, often referred to as Op. 37/12 - Robert's Op. 37 and Clara's Op. 12. There was no indication which of the songs were Clara's, much to the amusement of Robert who noted on his copy that numbers two, four and eleven were his wife's (Briscoe, 2004: 141). Overall, Clara Schumann's contribution to art song in the long nineteenth century is not what she composed but the extent she went to, to bring the work of her husband to the mind of European audiences.

Nearly all of her performance programmes contained Schumann's works, with her first solo appearance since her marriage being the one that generated public acknowledgment of her husband as a composer, putting him and his pieces on the map (Reich, 1985: 109). After his death, Clara stopped composing and dedicated the rest of her life to performing the works composed by her husband (Briscoe, 2004: 140). Essentially, Robert's name and works were kept alive through generations because of his wife's commitment. Similar to Fanny Hensel, Clara being a woman in the nineteenth century meant she would have struggled to publish any material under her own name or even create a name for herself as a pianist without the help of her renowned father.

Like Fanny and Clara, Amy Beach was also a pianist and composer, but was born in New Hampshire, USA in 1867. She died in New York in 1944, but was the first American female composer to have a successful career of large-scale art music (Briscoe, 2004: 198). She was extremely talented from a young age, being able to accurately sing forty songs by the age of one. She could improvise counter-melody by two, taught herself to read at three while also composing three waltzes for piano at the age of four (Block, 1998: 8). Amy, at sixteen years old, made her concert debut at Boston's Music Hall (Block, 1998: 29) where her performance was the highlight of the evening and proved she could have had an extraordinary performance career.

However, Amy's parents were not supportive of her career ambitions as a concert pianist and prevented her from moving to study in Europe, which would have been crucial for her to make it big in the field (Block, 1998: 22). At the age of eighteen, Amy was married to a surgeon twenty-four years her senior, with her name on published compositions thereafter being noted as 'Mrs H.H.A. Beach' (Britannica). This, again, proves the ethos of the time, where in order for a woman to have any success or influence in the world of music, publications must be under a male, otherwise they would gain no respect for their hard work and dedication. Her husband seemingly shared Amy's parent's view by encouraging her to focus all her efforts on composing rather than performance, limiting her performances to two public recitals a year (Block, 1998: 50). When her husband died in 1910, Amy moved to Europe to rebuild her concert career and have her works performed and known throughout the continent (Briscoe, 2004: 198).

One piece which married together her love for both performance and composition was her Piano Concerto in C-Sharp minor, composed in 1897/98 and published in 1900. It is thought the concerto was at least partly autobiographical, making it extra special that Amy was invited to give the first performance along with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (Briscoe, 2004: 198). Overall, during the long nineteenth century, Amy Beach made a significant contribution to art music, possibly even a larger impact than Fanny Hensel or Clara Schumann. This could be due to Amy being active during a later period and may show a gradual change regarding female composers.

Being married so young and virtually forced to give up a concert career prevented her performing and publicising her own works, something which she did actively after the death of her husband. Amy's works comprise more than 115 songs, piano pieces, choral works, a mass, a one act opera, chamber music, a symphony and a piano concerto, nearly all of which have been published and performed (Briscoe, 2004: 198). Amy's Gaelic Symphony is the piece that cemented her in history as the first American woman to publish and compose a symphony (Gates, 2010: 1). The symphony was forgotten during the 1920's but re-emerged during the 1930s and 1940s, being the piece today that is most associated with Amy (Block, 1998: 256). Amy Beach could have been a bigger name in terms of her performance ability and her compositions but was prohibited by her parents and her husband in the same way many female composers were before.

In conclusion, women in the long nineteenth century made a significant contribution behind closed doors. They were excluded from being big names in music for the simple reason that this was not a career path for women, the only way many could get their compositions heard was publishing them under the name of a male counterpart. There are only few female composers who roll of the tongue in today's society, many of whom don't even come to mind until after many male composers have been named. There are possibly hundreds of female composers from this era who are still unknown and whose works are being credited to a man, never to be identified.