Two performances this past weekend, titled “Treasures Beloved and Unknown”, exposed audiences of the North State Symphony in Chico and Redding, California to the work of Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979). The piece performed was Clarke’s most remembered composition, Viola Sonata, arranged for viola and orchestra by Ruth Lomon, an acclaimed composer who is currently base in Boston.
The solo violist was Melissa Matson, principal violist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra – the same orchestra that has demonstrated their commitment to the performances of works by women.
Photo by ChicoER.com
You can read the local review from Chico Enterprise-Record here. And do note the connection with Melissa Matson and Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy’s own Liane Curtis! Kudos to the great performances, advocacy, and education that was shared with the musicians and audience of the North State Symphony!
When studying the history of women in music, it is all too common to read about the difficulties that women faced from their own families in pursing music seriously. Cases can be found in all time periods, in all levels of society, and in countries far and wide. The result most often is that their work and history is lost in family papers and boxes stored in the attic or under the bed, long waiting to be recovered and remembered. You can imagine, then, how refreshing it is to come across a case where a woman who was once prevented from pursuing their passion to later be revived by their descendants.
Mel (Mélanie) Bonis (1858-1937) was a prolific French composer. At the time of her death she had penned over 300 compositions, including works for voice, piano solo and four hands, choral music, chamber works, a mass, and works for orchestra. She adopted the pen name of Mel early on to be able to publish and present her works androgynously, and was recognized widely in her lifetime.
Bonis was student of César Franck and classmate of Claude Debussy – Camille Saint-Saëns reportedly said of Bonis’ First Piano Quartet:
I had never believed that a woman could write something such. She knows all the clever tricks of the composer’s trade.
The resistance that Bonis faced from her family was profound, and included an arranged marriage to a twice-widowed man who was 25 years her senior. The marriage was intended to curtail her music composition and limit her exposure to the community that she once was once so entwined. She was a mother to nine children (five of whom were from her husband’s previous marriages) and attended to all of her duties in managing multiple estates and their servants, only returning to music later in life. But she did continue to compose and again regain status and exposure in the music community.
The life and works of Mel Bonis have been better remembered in France than in the United States, largely due to the work of family members to continue to promote the legacy, history, and work of their ancestor. Do visit the official webpage run by Mel Bonis’ family which includes a lengthy biography, photographs, and list of works. Several compositions by Bonis are available for free through the International Music Score Library Project.
And do take a listen to her work, which I find to be quite inspired!
After an unexpected and far too lengthy hiatus, Feminist in the Concert Hall is back for the New Year. And what better way to start than with great news from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
I posted last year about the changes that the ensemble was going to have this season, both in conductor, as well as with programming. New conductor Arild Remmereit was very clear in his intentions to diversify programming in the Season Announcement released in March 2010:
One of my passions is searching for under-appreciated or overlooked pieces that trigger in me an immediate emotional connection – works, which while unknown, are ones I believe musicians will love to play and audiences will love to hear. This is what I mean by ‘creating classics’.
His enthusiasm for this music is also evident when he speaks of the works:
The season opened with Amy Beach’s “Gaelic” Symphony in September. In October the RPO joined with the Eastman School of Music to present Fanny Mendessohn Hensel’s Hiob, (the review of which can be found here). November brought Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin American Dances, and being presented the past two weekends is Peggy Stuart Coolidge’s Blue Planet.
Still to come are works by Karen Tanaka, Clara Schumann, Sofia Guabaidulina and a new piece by Margaret Brouwer.
I am delighted not only in the range and number of pieces being performed, but of the enthusiasm of Remmereit, which I have a feeling will continue. It was just announced that the RPO has been selected for the 2014 Spring For Music festival at Carnegie Hall.
The concert, scheduled for May 7, 2014, will feature Beach’s Symphony.
And I handed out a flier (200 of ‘em!). It’s amazing how some people look right through you when you are trying to hand them something. Others were, of course, full of interest and enthusiasm! I met some very kind people! And I met BSO artistic administrator Tony Fogg, who I had written back when I wrote James Levine and Mark Volpe in 2008 (and several times after that). He said that he had written me back a lengthy reply, but I never received it. Too bad to have a miscommunication, I will try again … and again …
Here’s a link to the front of the flier in PDF format (the back was a summary of my letter to the BSO referenced above)
In this time of strife for orchestral musicians, it is refreshing to remember just how dedicated many have been throughout their careers. Norman Lebrecht posted on his blog a “near-definitive” list of the longest serving orchestral musicians. While it will surely continue to be updated and changed as more information comes forth, it is significant to note that women performers hold the top two positions.
Today is the 124th birthday of composer, conductor, and educator Nadia Boulanger.
I was actually reminded of this on my morning commute by my local independent radio station, WDIY, who did a birthday tribute to Nadia by playing works of some of her most famous pupils. I have included here Nadia’s Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra:
Though she is often remembered as the wife of Gustav, her own career as a musician and composer is neglected. Alma studied piano from an early age and took composition lessons with Josef Labor and Alexander von Zemlinsky. When she married in 1902 Gustav required her to give up her own composing to focus on the home and future family.
Her works were primarily lieder, though there is evidence of instrumental works as well as part of an opera. Only 17 songs survive. Most were published in her lifetime after the death of Gustav. Her papers are at the University of Pennsylvania.
Here is a recording of Alma’s “In meines Vaters Garten”:
I had been trying to put together some thoughts about the way women who perform classical music are viewed/described by the media, long before Yuja Wang made her controversial Hollywood Bowl appearance. And after sifting through dozens of articles and critiques, I have come up with at least some of what I want to say.
For those who are (perhaps blissfully) unaware of the media frenzy that has recently taken over the classical music community, Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, performed Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano concerto at the Hollywood Bowl on August 2. However, what has remained on everyone’s minds (continuing to be mentioned even 2-½ weeks later) is not her interpretation of the work, but rather what she wore.
The August 3 review in the LA Times by Mark Swed devoted a whole paragraph to the dress:
Her dress Tuesday was so short and tight that had there been any less of it, the Bowl might have been forced to restrict admission to any music lover under 18 not accompanied by an adult. Had her heels been any higher, walking, to say nothing of her sensitive pedaling, would have been unfeasible. The infernal helicopters that brazenly buzz the Bowl seemed, on this night, like long-necked paparazzi wanting a good look.
For reference, here is a video of Yuja Wang (wearing a different – although equally revealing – dress) playing Scriabin:
The responses to the concert, and the review, have been plentiful:
Anne Midgette, music critic at the Washington Post, is familiar with the topic, having written a lengthy article for the New York Times in 2004 titled, “The Curse of Beauty for Serious Musicians; Young Women Find the Playing Field is Far From Level”. In recent days she, too, has contributed to the conversation regarding Wang’s dress, and criticizesLA Times reviewer Mark Swed’s take on the outfit, and speaks to larger concerns with how the classical music community is advancing and embracing change, or not.
And Amanda Ameer at Life’s A Pitch, commented on the dress, sharing her conflicted standpoint on a performer’s right to personal choice versus the expectations for a collaborative effort with the rest of the musicians. Many readers’ comments also raise excellent points on the implications of the general of beauty.
The Well-Tempered Ear is conducting a poll about what “appropriate” concert attire would look like, and rightfully addresses the differences in expectations for male and female soloists.
Adam Tschorn, also of the LA Times, shares his thoughts on the dress and the hulabaloo here.
An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by music critic David Patrick Stearns likens Wang and her contemporaries (young soloists, like Lang Lang) as “rock stars”. Stearns believes that it is reasonable for young, talented, popular musicians to conform to the fashion of the day, but cautions that it’s going too far:
But it’s all getting so extreme, some might say classical music is turning into its own slutwalk, with artists seizing upon every possible media outlet, and looking as provocative as possible.
(Aside: Isn’t it interesting that he certainly purposefully chose that term and still misses the point, even with all the recent news coverage of slutwalks taking place across the country and around the world.)
Moreover, Stearns seems to be more concerned that fans of Wang will only be interested in attending concerts because of her attire and not her music, and then immediately calls to reference the other women that have faced scrutiny over the years
Overall, the classical world is a better place since violinist Anne Sophie Mutter began, in the mid-1980s, wearing strapless concert gowns that give her more freedom of movement, not to mention the sensual pleasure of feeling her violin close to her bare skin. Soprano Karita Mattila spends her spare time making her own form-fitting concert gowns; one could have worse hobbies. Both artists have exemplary careers with adventuresome contemporary repertoire. Also, visual desensitization set in quickly: After a few concerts, I stopped noticing what they wore and was all ears.
…and still seems to miss his own point.
***
As those of us who pay attention to these things know, it is not the first time that a critique of visual aspects of the performer took precedence over the music and its interpretation. Physical appearance has always played a role in music making – how a women presents herself physically is, and has always been, important to the society at large. There is a long history of women being prohibited from playing instruments because of how they required a woman to hold her body (think cello), or contort her face (oboe, trumpet, etc.). Instead, women were encouraged to play instruments that would enhance their feminine beauty.
When women first began to step into the spotlight in the 19th century as soloists (like Camilla Urso, for example), their attire was usually just as heavily critiqued as their performance. As Beth Abelson Macleod noted in her book Women Performing Music, many dresses were described “with an attention to detail generally reserved for bridal gowns on today’s society pages.”
And the bias that women faced in joining symphony orchestras, which was rampant in mid-late 20th century in the United States, and which continues in Europe, included commentary on physical appearance. In 1946 conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was quoted as saying,
I do not like, and never will, the association of men and women in orchestras and other instrumental combinations…. As a member of the orchestra once said to me, ‘If she is attractive I can’t play with her and if she is not I won’t.’
And he wasn’t alone. Franz Reiner, who conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony, said around 1945 that “I’ll take any man in the country before I’ll take a woman.”
The inherent bias was so troubling that blind auditions (where performers auditioned anonymously behind a curtain) were put in place in the 1960s and 1970s to allow for the possibility of merit to be the qualifying factor.
In the following decades, more women found their ways into professional orchestras, and earned success as soloists. But though expectations for appearance changed, it was never removed from the equation. Women instrumentalists have often found their attire to take up more room in their concert reviews than any thoughtful criticism of the performance. World-renowned violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was one of the reviewers’ favorite targets in the late 1990’s. In a review that appeared on February 28, 1997, Toronto Star critic William Littler wrote:
The late English music critic Sir Neville Cardus, whose eyes were as open as his ears, used to say of the Viennese soprano Lisa della Casa that one should go to her concerts twice: once to listen, once to look. It is the kind of remark familiar as well to German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, she of the flowing tresses and off-the-shoulder gowns. It is a sexist remark, no doubt, for which those of us with trousers make no apology. Nature has been bounteous to such women and just a little bit cruel as well, because we can never entirely regard their artistry in isolation from their beauty.
Which brings us to the other side of this problem. Female solo performers are criticized if they choose attire that is considered too “racy”, as well as when they choose perhaps a more conservative ensemble. Lara St. John, Canadian violinist with a history of wearing un-conservative concert attire, received criticism of the latter kind from critic John Terauds in a February 13, 2004 review (also in the Toronto Star):
An almost matronly St. John shambled out on to the Jane Mallett Theatre stage in a wrinkled pigeon-coloured number that had to be one of the ugliest frocks to see stage lights this season….This violinist proved that what you look like says little about your music. Her music last night was as good as it gets. But it still might be time to buy a new dress.
(Midgette’s Times article, linked above, is written in response to this review by Terauds.)
Physical appearance in classical music continues to be an important factor for performers who seek to get ahead – particularly women. Over-sexualization of women performers is rampant, evidenced in part by the website Beauty in Music has been cataloguing “The Sexist Women in Classical Music”, which provided pictures of instrumentalists but neglects to include any names. And Norman Lebrecht at Slipped Disc had the audacity to suggest just a few months ago that EMI, having signed trumpet soloist Tine Thing Helseth, may have made an error in that they “already have a young, blonde trumpet player in Alison Blasom.” The implication, of course, being that there is only room in the classical world for one sexy trumpet player, and certainly not two, irregardless of their talent or creativity.
Men (perhaps increasingly) also face expectations and criticism – this evidenced by the listing of The Top 12 Classical Music Pinups (which includes men and women), and “breaking” stories about a composer who joined a modeling agency.
Expectations for vocalists are even more cutthroat than instrumentalists, particularly in this world of ever-enterprising, novelty-seeking and boundary-breaking operatic directors. The story of soprano Deborah Voight’s dramatic weight loss after being removed from an opera production because she couldn’t fit into a specific black cocktail dress is now infamous – and being retold by Voight, at Glimmerglass this past year as well as in an upcoming memoir. Australian opera director Lyndon Terracini has publicly and very clearly proclaimed his position in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald:
The fat lady has sung. And if Lyndon Terracini continues to get his way, she won’t get an encore until she at least shifts some weight.
Lest the man charged with overseeing the future of opera in Australia be accused of sexism, he is quick to point out that his shape-up-or-ship-out message applies to all performers, regardless of gender.
”If you’re seeing a couple making out and one of them is obese, who wants to watch that?” he says with a theatrical grimace. ‘‘It’s obscene. You just think, ‘Jeez, for Chrissakes, don’t let the children see that’.”
Apparently it is okay to be fat-phobic if you are not sexist about it.
There have been plenty of arguments as to why it is important to maintain the concert standards that were created decades ago – but also arguments to change the status quo. If classical music is going to thrive once again, isn’t it time to move beyond these trite and blatantly sexist criticisms, which further reinforce the patriarchy that we still can’t seem to shake? It appears more and more that talent is coming in second place to reinforcing flawed and damaging beauty standards. We expect classical musicians to look beautiful, but not be too sexy or glamorous or empowered. And if they don’t conform to what the resounding majority believes to be beautiful, then they don’t belong on the stage at all.
Performers are on stage to be seen and heard, certainly. Watching a performer engage with the music is why I attend live performances. However, I see no point in forgetting the music for the sake of being a beauty/fashion critic, other than to detract from what is more than likely amazing (and maybe threatening) talent for the sake of maintaining restrictive social standards for beauty and appearance.
I just saw the new trailer for the film, titled Mozart’s Sister, yesterday – and today NPR’s classical music blog Deceptive Cadence discussed the film and the how little is really known about the life and music of the “other” Mozart.
Here’s the official trailer for the film:
It has opened (in limited release), and I’m anxious to find a theater in my area that will be presenting it. Though surely flawed, as almost all films of this nature are, it will undoubtedly provide a better insight into who Nannerl was and the forces that she had to work against throughout her lifetime.
The official website for the film also provides information about where and when it will be released nationwide.
The Hildegard Publishing Company, which is named after my favorite medieval abbess and is one of my favorite resources for finding music composed by women, put together a great resource for music educators who may be looking for new resources for their classroom or studio.
Be sure to check out their Back to School Guide and stock up on some wonderful music!
