Transcript Women, Music, Culture Chapter 11

Women, Music, Culture
Chapter 11
TWENTIETH-CENTURY LARGE-SCALE WORKS:
CONTRASTING COMPOSITIONAL VOICES
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Chapter Focus
 Access to education resulted in an explosion of
compositional activity for women

By the 1870s, some conservatories opened their doors to
women

Music theory and orchestration coursework allowed women to
explore large-scale works: genres that require large
numbers of performers or that are of significant length and
complexity
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Still Roadblocks
 Full integration of women in the field was slow

Mentoring was lacking

According to composer Libby Larsen, “The little kinds of support
that men received from mentors were withheld from women” even
as late as the 1970s

Mentoring is critical for funding and for accessing venues and
ensembles
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Many 20th century
composers made a living
as university professors,
a profession difficult for
women to access prior
to 1950
Even the best-educated
composers had difficulty
accessing ensembles,
and fought to hear their
works performed
Recordings of women’s
large-scale works have
thus been difficult to
obtain
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
th
20
Still, the
century
marks the beginning of
the most productive
compositional period
for women in music
history
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Nurturing the Unique Compositional Voice
at the Turn of the 20th Century:
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Boulanger is
regarded as the
greatest
composition
teacher of the 20th
century
• Over 130 of her students are listed
in the New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians
Boulanger was
adamant that her
students should
find the essence of
their compositional
uniqueness
• Her students wrote a wide range
of genres and styles, from jazz and
opera to symphonic works
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Boulanger left an indelible mark on music history
Nadia Boulanger (left) with her Sinsinawa Dominican student Sister Mary Edward Blackwell, O. P. , 1944.
Courtesy of the Sinsinawa Mound Archives
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Amy Beach (1867-1944):
The Symphony and Beyond
As intellectually gifted as
she was musically talented,
Beach taught herself
orchestration by reading
textbooks and studying
scores after being denied
access to formal
compositional study
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 Beach is probably best known for her Symphony in E
Minor, “The Gaelic”

Less documented is the fact that she embraced emerging styles
and techniques throughout her career

After her husband’s death, she returned to the concert stage as
a performing pianist, reviving the career she had been denied
at the request of her spouse
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)
 Tailleferre was a member of Les Six, a prominent
group of French composers from the early 20th
century

Though her father opposed her study at the French
conservatory, Tailleferre paid her way via scholarships and
teaching

She received more conservatory composition prizes than any
other member of Les Six, but did not receive nearly as much
historical documentation as her male peers
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
 Partly to blame:
 Tailleferre’s best compositions were large-scale works, many of
which were not recorded until the turn of the 21st century
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Florence Price (1887-1953)
Price was the first
African-American
woman to receive
recognition as a
composer
She frequently wrote
to conductors,
asking that they
consider her work
on its merits
She is known for
incorporating black
vernacular music
sources into her art
music works
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)
Zwilich represents women
who received advanced
music degrees in the latter
half of the 20th century
Her personal performance
skills, ensemble experience,
and compositional
knowledge result in
technically challenging
works known for their fine
musical construction
Zwilich was the first woman
to win the Pulitzer Prize in
Composition, awarded in
1983 for her Symphony
Number One
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Zwilich – Symphony No. 1
 “Symphony No. 1 grew out of several of my most
central music concerns. First, I have long been
interested in the elaboration of large-scale works
from the initial material. This ‘organic’ approach to
musical form fascinates me both in the development
of the material and in the fashioning of a musical
idea that contains the ‘seeds’ of the work to follow.
Second, in my recent works I have been
developing techniques that combine modern
principles of continuous variation with older
(but still immensely satisfying) principles,
such as melodic and pitch recurrence and
clearly defined areas of contrast.
Finally, Symphony No. 1 was written
with great affection for the modern orchestra,
not only for its indescribable richness and
variety of color, but also for the virtuosity and
artistry of its players.
Chen Yi b. 1953)
 Fuses music of the East and West
 Main goal has been described as “the desire to create
‘real music’ for society and future generations.”
 Age 15 – her family was seized by the gov’t
 All 5 members were separated
 Spent two years doing forced labor in the
countryside (carried rocks and planted rice)
•Age 17 allowed to return to her home city of
Guangzhou
• Called by the gov’t to assist with Beijing
opera
•Became concertmaster and composer with
the Beijing Opera Troupe
•1977 – allowed to enroll in the Beijing
Central Conservatory
•1986 – became the first woman in China to
receive a MA in composition
•Same year, arrived in the US as a participant
in the Center for United States-China Arts
Exchange at Columbia University
•1993 – received DMA from Columbia and
was appointed composer-in-residence with
three San Francisco musical organizations:
the Women’s Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and
the Creative Arts
Program at Aptos Middle School
•Wrote Chinese Myths Cantata while
composer-in-residence
•Held many prestigious appointments
•Received many awards, fellowships, and
honors
•Fall of 1998 – joined faculty at Conservatory
of the University of Missouri at Kansas City as
the Lorena Searcey Cravens Missouri
Endowed Professor in Composition
Chen Yi (b. 1953)
Chen Yi’s compositional voice reflects a fusion of music of the East and West
In China, she became familiar with almost
every traditional Chinese instrument
At the same time, she studied Western violin
and piano literature
Chen Yi’s “Chinese Myths Cantata” is an excellent example of the composer’s
ability to authentically preserve and blend musical traditions
Largely atonal, the work appeals to audiences on many levels, including its
programmatic nature
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
Thea Musgrave (b. 1928)
A student of
Nadia
Boulanger, the
Scottish-born
Musgrave is a
prolific
composer who
has explored a
wide variety of
genres
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
• Operas are among her highest
regarded works
• She is also known for
incorporating dramatic elements
into her symphonic works
• In addition, she has done
electroacoustic composition and
serial works
Summary
Women have been
engaged in all aspects
of 20th century
compositional
diversity
© 2011 Taylor & Francis.
The women
mentioned in this
chapter represent a
small fraction of the
women involved