Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900
Author: Laurel Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-09-28
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190909277

Through musical analysis of compositions written between the mid-twelfth to late nineteenth centuries, this volume celebrates the achievements of eight composers, all women: Hildegard of Bingen, Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianne Martines, Josephine Lang, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach. Written by outstanding music theorists and musicologists, the essays provide fascinating in-depth critical-analytic explorations of representative compositions, often linking analytical observations with questions of meaning and sociohistorical context. Each essay is introduced by a brief biographical sketch of the composer by the editors. The collection--Volume 1 in an unprecedented four-volume series of analytical studies on music by women composers--is designed to challenge and stimulate a wide range of readers. For academics, these thoughtful analytical essays can open new paths into unexplored research areas in the fields of music theory and musicology. Post-secondary instructors may be inspired by the insights offered in these essays to include new works in music theory and history courses at both graduate and upper-level undergraduate levels, or in courses on women and music. Finally, for soloists, ensembles, conductors, and music broadcasters, these detailed analyses can offer enriched understandings of this repertoire and suggest fresh, new programming possibilities to share with listeners.

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900DS1960

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900DS1960
Author: Laurel Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2022
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190236981

"This is the second of four volumes in a multi-authored series of analytical essays on music by women composers from Hildegard of Bingen to the twenty-first century. Volume 2 presents detailed studies of compositions written between 1900 and 1960 by Alma Mahler-Werfel, Rebecca Clarke, Ethel Smyth, Ruth Crawford, Florence B. Price, Galina Ustvolskaya, J. M. Beyer, and Peggy Glanville-Hicks. Each chapter opens with a brief biographical sketch of the composer, followed by an in-depth analysis of a single representative composition, occasionally including other works where comparison strengthens the analytical argument. The repertoire explored by the authors includes art song, opera, choral, solo piano, chamber, and orchestral music. To enhance the volume's accessibility to readers who are not professional music theorists or musicologists, a glossary provides explanations of music-theoretical terms used in the book. The collection is designed to challenge and stimulate a wide range of readers. For academics, these thorough analytical studies can open new paths into unexplored research areas in music theory and musicology. Post-secondary instructors may be inspired by the insights offered here to include new works in graduate or upper-level undergraduate courses in early twentieth-century music or women and music. Finally, for performers, conductors, and music broadcasters, these thoughtful analyses can offer enriched understandings of this repertoire and suggest fresh, new programming possibilities to share with listeners-an endeavor of discovery for all those interested in twentieth-century music"--

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1960-2000

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1960-2000
Author: Laurel Parsons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Music
ISBN: 019061384X

Over the past 30 years, musicologists have produced a remarkable new body of research literature focusing on the lives and careers of women composers in their socio-historical contexts. But detailed analysis and discussion of the works created by these composers are still extremely rare. This is particularly true in the domain of music theory, where scholarly work continues to focus almost exclusively on male composers. Moreover, while the number of performances, broadcasts, and recordings of music by women has unquestionably grown, these works remain significantly underrepresented in comparison to music by male composers. Addressing these deficits is not simply a matter of rectifying a scholarly gender imbalance: the lack of knowledge surrounding the music of female composers means that scholars, performers, and the general public remain unfamiliar with a large body of exciting repertoire. Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1960-2000 is the first to appear in a groundbreaking four-volume series devoted to compositions by women across Western art music history. Each chapter opens with a brief biographical sketch of the composer before presenting an in-depth critical-analytic exploration of a single representative composition, linking analytical observations with questions of meaning and sociohistorical context. Chapters are grouped thematically by analytical approach into three sections, each of which places the analytical methods used in the essays that follow into the context of late twentieth-century ideas and trends. Featuring rich analyses and critical discussions, many by leading music theorists in the field, this collection brings to the fore repertoire from a range of important composers, thereby enabling further exploration by scholars, teachers, performers, and listeners.

The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers

The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers
Author: Matthew Head
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2024-05-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 110848915X

Exploring a diverse, distinguished repertoire, and transcending the rhetoric of neglect, this book transforms understanding of women composers.

Clara Schumann Studies

Clara Schumann Studies
Author: Joe Davies
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-12-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1108787738

Since the 1980s, when she re-emerged from the peripheries into a more central position in music studies, Clara Schumann (1819–1896) has exerted an enduring fascination over the scholarly and popular imagination. Revisionist biographies, the uncovering of primary sources (diaries, letters, memorabilia), and filmic and literary depictions of Schumann have all brought into sharper focus the details and reception of her life, while simultaneously drawing attention to how much there is still to learn about her creativity. This book brings together a team of leading scholars to reappraise Clara Schumann in three particular respects: first, by delving deeper into her social and musical contexts; secondly, by offering fresh analytical perspectives on her songs and instrumental music; and thirdly, by reconsidering her legacy as a pianist and teacher. In doing so, the volume not only contributes to a rounded picture of Schumann's creative vision, but also opens up new pathways in the wider study of women in music.

Inclusive Music Histories: Leading Change through Research and Pedagogy

Inclusive Music Histories: Leading Change through Research and Pedagogy
Author: Ayana O. Smith
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2023-08-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1000991016

Inclusive Music Histories: Leading Change through Research and Pedagogy models effective practices for researchers and instructors striving either to reform music history curricula at large or update individual topics within their classes to be more inclusive. Confronting racial and other imbalances of Western music history, the author develops four core principles that enable a shift in thinking to create a truly intersectional music history narrative and provides case studies that can be directly applied in the classroom. The book addresses inclusivity issues in the discipline of musicology by outlining imbalances encoded into the canonic repertory, pedagogy, and historiography of the field. This book offers comprehensive teaching tools that instructors can use at all stages of course design, from syllabus writing and lecture planning to discussion techniques, with assignments for each of the subject matter case studies. Inclusive Music Histories enables instructors to go beyond token representation to a more nuanced music history pedagogy.

The Songs of Clara Schumann

The Songs of Clara Schumann
Author: Stephen Rodgers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1108998593

Focusing on Clara Schumann's central contributions to the genre of the Lied (or German art song), this is the first book-length critical study of her songs. Although relatively few in number, they were published and reviewed favorably in the press during her lifetime, and they continue to be programmed regularly in recitals by professional and amateur performers alike. Highlighting the powerful and distinctive features of the songs, the book treats them as a prism, casting light not just on them but also through them to explore questions that foster a deeper understanding of the work of female composers. The author argues for the importance of taking Clara Schumann's music on its own terms, the intimate relationship between text and musical form, and the vital role of musical analysis in recuperating the contributions of previously understudied composers.

The Composer, Herself

The Composer, Herself
Author: Linda Kouvaras
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2023-11-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 3031239229

This edited volume presents 27 original essays by living composers from all around the globe, reflecting on the creation of their music. Coterminous to the recent worldwide resurgence in feminist focus, the distinctive feature of this collection is the “snapshots” of creative processes and conceptualizing on the part of women who write music, writing in the present day, from prominent early-career composers to major figures, from a range of ethnic backgrounds in the contemporary music field. The chapters step into the juncture point at which feminism finds itself: as binary conceptions of gender are being dissolved, with critiques of the attendant gender-based historical generalizations of composers, and with the growing awareness of the rightful place of First Nations' cultural voices, the contributors explore what, actually, is being composed by women, and what they think about their world. The needs that this book serves are acutely felt: despite recent social gains, and sector initiatives and programs encouraging and presenting the work of women who compose music, their works are yet to receive commensurate exposure with that of their male counterparts. In its multi-pronged, direct response to this dire situation, this vibrant volume highlights established as well as emerging women composers on the international stage; reveals myriad issues around feminism, as broadly conceived; and gives insights, from the composers' own voices, on the inner workings of their composition process. The volume thus presents a contemporary moment in time across the generations and within developments in musical composition. With its unique insights, this book is essential for academics and practitioners interested in the illuminations of the current working landscape for creative women.

The Songs of Fanny Hensel

The Songs of Fanny Hensel
Author: Stephen Rodgers
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021-01-08
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0190919566

Introduction / Stephen Rodgers -- Nature and Travel. The Wilderness at Home : Woods-Romanticism in Fanny Hensel's Eichendorff Songs / Amanda Lalonde ; Waldszenen and Abendbilder : Fanny Hensel, Nikolaus Lenau, and the Nature of Melancholy / Scott Burnham ; Songs of Travel : Fanny Hensel's Wanderings / Susan Wollenberg -- Settings of English Verse. Women's Private Cosmopolitanism in Literary Translation and Song : Fanny Hensel's Drei Lieder nach Heinrich Heine von Mary Alexander / Jennifer Ronyak ; In this elusive language: A Byron Song by Fanny Hensel / Susan Youens -- Tonal Ingenuity. You too may change : Tonal Pairing of the Tonic and Subdominant in Two Songs by Fanny Hensel / Tyler Osborne ; Plagal Cadences in Fanny Hensel's Songs / Stephen Rodgers -- Responses to Poetic Form. Working with Words : Revisions of Declamation in Fanny Hensel's Song Autographs / Harald Krebs ; Modulating Couplets in Fanny Hensel's Songs / Yonatan Malin -- Beyond Song/Beyond Hensel. Reading Poetry Through Music: Fanny Hensel and Others / Jürgen Thym ; Fanny Hensel's Lieder (ohne Worte) and the Boundaries of Song : The Curious Case of the Lied in Db major, Op. 8, No. 3 / R. Larry Todd.