Women and Music

Little can be said about music during the last century
without encountering the men and women who supported it financially.
Pierre Bourdieu’s impression that the services rendered freely
for the good of society reinforce a symbolic debt between giver
and recipient complicates motivations behind patronage. Indeed,
applying Bourdieu’s theory to altruism in general – here, patronage
in particular – highlights what could be thought of as a performance
of futility: both giver and receiver understand the tenacious
terms yet agree nonetheless to act out the process of reaching equilibrium.
In the case of iconic music patron Betty Freeman (1921–
2009), her support of the avant-garde seems, at times, to call
into question on what side of this ‘performed futility’ she existed.
This article considers ways in which Freeman’s work as patron of
the musical avant-garde allowed her to perform her identity as a
woman and mother among a community on the fringe.

'Feeling reinvented...' Analysis and aesthetical interpretation of "Ricercari" (1984), for Symphony Orchestra, by Portuguese harpist and composer Clotilde Rosa (born 1930). A work crossing tamed avant-garde techniques and the background recovery of romantic compositional tension.

Minulý rok sme si v novembri pripomenuli osemdesiatročné jubileum muzikologičky PhDr. Ľuby Ballovej, CSc. Okrúhle životné výročia sú vždy vhodnou príležitosťou priblížiť si doterajšiu tvorivú prácu jubilantov a zhodnotiť ich prínos. Takmer polstoročie činorodého pôsobenia Ľuby Ballovej v hudobnom živote významne prispelo k hlbšiemu poznaniu hudobnej minulosti Slovenska a jej zviditeľňovaniu doma i v zahraničí. Množstvo publikovaných prác, realizovaných výstav, rozhlasových relácií, prednesených prednášok a referátov na domácej a zahraničnej pôde dokumentuje šírku profesijných záujmov a rozmanitosť spracúvaných tém, ktorým sa venovala.

Among the modernisations and upheavals that characterised Europe’s modernity before the Second World War, the women’s movement also transformed cultural and musical life. Women artists began to self-confidently raise their voices against social gender inequalities, even though leading institutions and discourses continued to be dominated by men. Music metropolises such as Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Paris or Cologne offered women diverse terrains to act artistically. In addition to traditional concert halls and opera houses as well as the salons of the upper classes, variety shows, cabarets and operetta houses functioned as new stages of musical entertainment. With this in mind, experts from musicology and cultural studies are invited to discuss women artists in their urban spaces of action and to present metropolises in Europe as places of women’s art. The lecture series takes place in cooperation with the Czech-German cultural project “Musica non grata.”

This article examines Googoosh, the reigning diva of Persian popular music, through an evaluation of diasporic Iranian discourse and artistic productions linking the vocalist to a feminized nation, its ‘victimisation’ in the revolution, and an attendant ‘nostalgia for the modern’ (Özyürek 2006) of pre-revolutionary Iran. Following analyses of diasporic media that project national drama and desire onto her persona, I then demonstrate how, since her departure from Iran in 2000, Googoosh has embraced her national metaphorization and produced new works that build on historical tropes linking nation, the erotic, and motherhood while capitalising on the nostalgia that surrounds her.

Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon: Music, Literature, Liberalism is the first book-length study of music and liberalism, of any period or place. Until now, statesmen and men of letters have been the focus of books about high Victorian liberals; my monograph presents how top-drawer music-making, led by a particularly prominent woman, interacts with this known trajectory.

Author’s response to Emily Jones, review of Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon: Music, Literature, Liberalism, (review no. 2258) in Reviews in History (12 July 2018), 2015 words. ISSN 1746-8155. https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/2258
Republished: recensio.net: review platform for European history. DOI:10.14296/RiH/2014/2258 https://www.recensio.net/rezensionen/zeitschriften/reviews-in-history/2018/june/mary-gladstone-and-the-victorian-salon

Representing the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts, musicians who receive these fellowships are recognized for their artistic excellence and contributions to our country's cultural heritage. With more than 100 of these artist fellows represented in the Smithsonian Folkways catalog, this issue of the magazine shines the spotlight on dozens of musicians whose enduring legacies continue in the United States.

Our cover story “¡Que Viva la Música Latina!” looks at the NEA National Heritage Fellowships through the prism of Latino music awardees. Written by Daniel E. Sheehy, former director of the NEA’s Folk and Traditional Arts program, this article offers readers a rich and varied mosaic of Latino music, supplemented by an extensive annotated playlist. Jeff Place’s “Blues Legacy of Phil Wiggins” is a thoughtful reflection on one of the more recent fellows, Phil Wiggins, and his devoted career to the development of Piedmont Blues. The exceptional contributions of women to Appalachian musical repertoire is the subject of Deborah J. Thompson’s “Appalachian Women Heritage Fellows,” which recognizes the work of eight musicians who exemplify “creative intelligence that reinvigorates and reinterprets their Appalachian cultural heritage in the present.” The historic recordings of Hawaiian master musicians on the release Musics of Hawai’i: Anthology of Hawaiian Music – Special Festival Edition is the subject of Meredith Holmgren’s article of the same name, which links the 1989 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Hawaiian program to a larger landmark state-led effort to document Hawaiian musical heritage in the 1980s and 90s.

Esta presentación analiza actividades musicales femeninas en espacios en que se producía un solapamiento entre lo privado y lo público, y lo religioso y lo secular. El Palau de la Comtessa de Barcelona se presenta como un espacio en que las nobles Requesens exhibían su estatus social a través de la música, celebrando tanto fiestas seculares como ceremonias devocionales en la capilla del palacio, que se convirtió en un importante foco de polifonía en la Barcelona de inicios de la Edad Moderna.

In Äthiopien herrscht ein patriarchalisches Gesellschaftssystem, das bestimmte geschlechtsspezifische Arbeitsteilungen begründet. Dazu gehört vor allem die traditionell verankerte Rolle der Frau - als Ehefrau, Haushälterin und Kindererzieherin. Frauen sind Opfer der Rückständigkeit des Landes, doch diese Tatsache wird – zumindest von der Mehrheit der männlichen Bevölkerung selten als veränderungswürdig erkannt. Dabei wird der Beitrag von Frauen für den gesamten Entwicklungsprozess in solchen Gesellschaften nicht ernst genug genommen. Diese Situation bleibt auch bestehen, solange eine ökonomische Entwicklung nicht stattfinden kann und solange die gesamte gesellschaftliche Entwicklung – auch im globalen Zusammenhang – nach den uns bekannten konservativen und damit wenig kreativen Ideen vorgezeichnet ist.
Im Bezug auf die äthiopischen Musiktraditionen stellen wir heute fest, dass der überwiegende Teil bis jetzt unerforscht geblieben ist, so dass eine Verallgemeinerung bzw. eine deutliche Gegenüberstellung von Musikkulturen nicht sinnvoll ist.
Dieser Beitrag beschränkt sich daher ausschließlich auf diejenigen Musikkulturen, zu denen gesicherte Informationen zur Verfügung stehen.

Si les trajectoires des divas et des divos au XVIIIe siècle ont fait l’objet de nombreuses études, qui permettent d’en retracer les carrières internationales, les conditions précises de leur arrivée dans les théâtres européens restent souvent terra incognita. Le rôle des intermédiaires commence tout juste à susciter l’intérêt des chercheurs, alors que l’importance des réseaux professionnels dans les choix de carrière des chanteurs est encore ignorée. Le cas des chanteuses est encore plus problématique, ces dernières étant aisément « invisibilisées » (R. Legrand) dans les sources. La mobilisation des réseaux nationaux et professionnels semble pourtant avérée, comme l’illustre le cas des prime buffe qui se succèdent au Burgtheater de Vienne à la fin du siècle : formées dans les mêmes institutions vénitiennes, elles font appel à leurs compatriotes musiciens pour trouver un débouché professionnel hors d’Italie. De même, celles qui parviennent à contourner l’interdiction faite par la République Sérénissime aux musiciennes des ospedali de pratiquer la musique hors de ces institutions ont toutes créé puis utilisé de complexes réseaux mêlant familiers, amis, mécènes. L’étude de la constitution de ces réseaux et de leur utilisation à des fins professionnelles mérite d’être abordée, leur spécificité résidant autant dans leur multiplicité que dans le genre de leurs créatrices, les hommes semblant adopter des stratégies différentes, sans doute moins complexes. A travers l’étude de trajectoires individuelles, on s’interrogera sur la pertinence d’une analyse genrée de ces réseaux et sur les modalités spécifiques d’utilisation par les musiciennes des possibilités qu’ils offrent. L’étude croiser les cas fameux de célébrités et des éléments recueillis sur des inconnues afin de proposer une grille d’analyse commune à l’ensemble des cantatrices italiennes ayant, durant le XVIIIe siècle, mobilisé leurs réseaux afin de parvenir à vivre de leur art.

This is a study of the musical activities of Empress Marie Therese (1772–1807), one of the most important patrons in the Vienna of Haydn and Beethoven. Building on extensive archival research, including many documents published here for the first time, it describes Marie Therese's activities as commissioner, collector, and performer of music, and explores the rich and diverse musical culture that she fostered at court. This book, which will be of interest to musicologists, historians of artistic patronage and taste, and practitioners of women's studies, elucidates this remarkable woman's relations with a host of professional musicians, including Haydn, and argues that she played a significant and hitherto unsuspected role in the inception of one of the era's greatest masterpieces, Beethoven's Fidelio. Other composers discussed include Domenico Cimarosa, Joseph Eybler, Michael Haydn, Johann Simon Mayr, Ferdinando Paer, Antonio Salieri, Joseph Weigl, and Paul Wranitzky.

"John A. Rice's excellent new study of the Empress Marie Therese (1772–1807) makes an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Vienna's musical culture. . .  A highly readable portrait of an appealing and intriguing patron."  Mary Sue Morrow, Eighteenth-Century Music

"One cannot help but stand in awe of the scholarship presented in this volume."  Caryl Clark, JAMS

"In this consistently engrossing and revealing study, John Rice rescues from obscurity one of the key figures in the musical life of Vienna during a particularly exciting if troubled time. . . Well illustrated visually and with many musical examples, this scholarly and very enjoyable book represents musical publishing at its best." Tim Blanning, Beethoven Forum

"Maria Theresia von Neapel, Kaiserin von Österreich (Lebensdaten: 1772–1807) steht hier erstmals umfassend als Förderin der musikalischen Künste während ihrer Regentschaft mit ihrem Gatten Franz II im Fokus. Aufgrund sorgfältiger Archivrecherchen und etlicher bisher unveröffentlichter Dokumente (z. B. ein eigenes Musiktagebuch) werden Maria Theresias Aktivitäten als Sammlerin, als Musikbevollmächtigte ihres Reiches und auch als praktizierende Musikerin am Hofe genau beschrieben. Haydn, Paer, Paisiello und Beethoven (vor allem mit seinem 'Fidelio') konnten erst unter ihrer Schirm'frau'schaft ihre volle Meisterschaft entfalten."
Ariadne, Newsletter 65: Kunst & Kultur (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek)

"Marie Therese deserved to be brought out of the shadows; John Rice has done the job admirably." Peter Branscombe, Austrian Studies

"Rice's method is to stay close to the documents that chronicle Marie Therese's musical universe. These include copyists' bills, signed receipts, concert programmes and posters, inventories, catalogues of collections, letters and diaries. He writes with a bibliographer's precision and tenacity, choosing to begin the book with a rather forbidding discussion of the present location and call numbers of works from Marie Therese's vast collections. The book's 100 pages of appendices include Marie Therese's musical diary listing the works performed at court, 1801–03, her correspondence with Paer and Paisiello, and a catalogue of the church music she owned. All items have extensive annotation. This kind of exhaustive research makes the book a definitive guide not only to the music Marie Therese owned but to the performances and performers she sponsored."  James J. Johnson, TLS

"Rice's is a model study of an enchanting subject. The rigorous documentary investigation is tempered by the attraction of the Empress's person – capricious indeed, but also deeply engaged in the promotion of contemporary music and the nurture of both professional and amateur talent. Altogether a power for good in the rich musical life of turn-of-the-century Vienna." Patricia Howard, Musical Times.

"Rice' Monographie über "die andere" Maria Theresia besticht durch ihre Fülle an Daten und das umfassende historische Hintergrundwissen; zahlreiche Tabellen und klug ausgewählte Illustrationen machen das Buch trotz der inhaltlichen Dichte übersichtlich und angenehm zu lesen – es wird sicherlich bald zu den "Klassikern" der habsburgischen Musikgeschichte zählten."  Elizabeth Thérèse Fritz-Hilscher, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift

"John Rice has produced a work of fundamental research for which future scholars
will be grateful. He has reconstructed Marie Therese's dispersed music library and shown how she put it together. He reveals the magnitude of her role in assembling it, as opposed to that of her husband as has usually been assumed. Drawing on her musical diary of 1801-3 (its list of concerts printed as an appendix) and other sources he has provided a wealth of evidence about programming and musical taste at the court. Rice has constructed a picture of the musical forces at her disposal, explored her activities in commissioning new works, and investigated her payments to performers and composers. Fascinating insights into the culture of the court are provided by his chapters on the concerts she arranged in celebration of the Emperor's birthday and name day and on musical caprice—her taste for the comic and the bizarre, with imusual and toy instruments, and musical jokes. There was a great deal of fun about the empress (Rice has obviously fallen in love with her). Though it is difficult to distinguish between conventional sentiments in praise of the empress and genuine affection, it appears that her musicians were devoted to her as a champion of their art. One is tempted to speculate that if Mozart had lived, with his love of play and fantasy he too would have been a faithful believer."  William Stafford, Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research

"Riceova monografie zahrnuje i četné další historické skutečnosti, jež ovšem předkládaná recenze nemůže zaznamenat v plném rozsahu. Množství uváděných bohemikálních souvislostí, které v Riceově knize nacházíme, třebaže toto téma nepatřilo mezi autorovy výzkumné záměry, českého badatele potěší. Zvláštní ocenění zasluhuje vedle rozsahu Riceových rešerší a objevování dosud neznámých hudebních a hudebně-institucionálních souvislostí autorova příkladná preciznost." Milada Jonášová, Hudební věda 

"A major contribution to knowledge of musical life in Vienna around the turn of the nineteenth century." Rupert Ridgewell, Newsletter of the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music

Ensayo conceptual donde se introducen algunas ideas sobre la instalación sonoro como problema de geografía humana. Teniendo como eje central de interés la obra de compositoras y performers.
Palabras clave: arte sonoro, paisaje sonoro, instalación sonora, poesía sonoro, arte vocal, geografía humana
*
Conceptual essay that introduces some ideas about sound art as a problem of human geography. Taking as central the work of women composers and performers.
Key words: sound art, soundscape, sound installation, sound poetry, vocal art, human geography

En el marco de las celebraciones del Día Internacional de la Mujer, quisiéramos re- cordar cómo en conmemoración del “Día Internacional [de Lucha] contra la violen- cia de género” se ha celebrado, entre otras actividades, el concierto Fémina Clásica, que cuenta actualmente con dos ediciones4. Organizado por la Fundación Autor, en el ámbito del Festival Fémina, se fundó sobre las preguntas: “¿La música puede cambiar actitudes? ¿La cultura ayuda a fomentar los valores sociales para que sea posible la con- vivencia?”, a lo que se sumó la intención de “abrir un nuevo espacio sonoro, en el que las compositoras actuales de música clásica contemporánea [tuvieran] la oportunidad de hacerse conocer o ser más reconocidas, y [pudieran] presentar ante el público sus obras, que muchas veces son creadas con la posible incertidumbre del silencio, por no encontrar un espacio para su estreno o en los circuitos de programación.”

Judith Weir's music embraces the unusual, from libretti drawing on the medieval past to fantastic narratives set within diverse stylistic frames. Her musical language has been praised and criticised in almost equal measure for its versatility and humour. Weir's music seems tied to the musical past, but in ways so divergent between pieces that critics struggle to engage with it as fully as with the music of other British composers of recent decades. Focusing on several works, I explore the often fraught sense of historical subjectivity in Weir's music and its reception. I also examine the critical discourse relating to Weir's music, in particular works based on historical or non-Western stimuli, arguing that these texts (even the words of the composer herself) are tied closely to a historical line that continues to feel anxious about the creative powers of women composers.

AS A UNIQUE HUMAN EXPRESSION THAT combines our bodily and cultural identity with idiosyncratic creativity, music provides an interesting setting for gender performance and negotiation in all sociohistorical and cultural contexts. In this article I will discuss the relevance of five ontological stances to the study of gender negotiation in musical performance. My aim is to put forth an analytical concept, "musical gender," that emphasizes music as a specific site and context for gender performance and analysis. I claim that music, in its creation and performance, provides new perspectives for the study of gender. The ontological stances to music that I discuss here are primarily based on cross-cultural, ethnomusicological literature. They are: (1) music is, like language, a primary modeling system, that is, a system that guides or forms our perceptions of the world or a system on which we model the world around us; (2) music is a bodily art; (3) music is most often publicly...

This article discusses Violeta Parra’s work as a woman musician analysing how she contributed to challenging long-standing colonial paradigms in Chilean (and Latin American) music. Through a review of the multifaceted concept of cantora, or female singer of the people, as well as the analysis of four cueca songs, this study offers insights on how Parra negotiated the terms of the Chilean urban folkloric scene of her time. Her trajectory as a folklorist allowed her to vindicate an otherwise disparaged popular culture, and as cantautora, or singer-songwriter, she redefined the gender roles of her time becoming a musical and political referent for her peers, thus offering renovated perspectives on both female musicianship and national identity.

In this chapter, I discuss some examples of Brazilian women artists active in experimental music and sound art, trying to identify when and how they face, question, and resist existing patriarchal 1 and hegemonic values, which are potential actions that can socially transform these scenes. 2 To do so, I investigate how and where such milieus are constituted; which spaces, institutions, agents, and habitus 3 govern their production; and the valorization and circulation of music, installations, performances, and artists. This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part, I briefly present the context of sound art and experimental music in Brazil, relating the social-more precisely the sex social relation (which includes sex, gender, and sexuality)-and economic conformation of these fields. 4 In the second part, I present the work of Lílian Campesato, Leandra Lambert, and Vanessa De Michelis. De Michelis's praxis will be addressed in a more detailed manner, as it is more representative of a political approach to sound art. In the third and final part, I conclude by highlighting the characteristics of De Michelis's work and the field of sound art in Brazil. My central argument is that the women addressed here have been impelled, through their art and associated creative methodology, to question or try to break with some of the norms that symbolize and reproduce, in different ways, patriarchy and hegemonic values in the fields of experimental music and sound art. Sound art and experimental music in the Brazilian context The Brazilian sound art and experimental music scenes are quite diverse and are constituted by numerous different people, initiatives, practices, and institutions that are currently active. This fluidity makes these scenes difficult to map. Despite this difficulty, there have been recent attempts to tackle this problem. One of these attempts is the Nendú platform, developed by the artist and scholar Rui Chaves as a result of his postdoctoral research (2016-2018) at NuSom-Research Center on Sonology, University of São Paulo. This platform offers a mapping of sound artists in Brazil. 5 By analyzing the curricula and trajectories of the main agents (artists, producers,

Josephinne Amann (1840-1887) foi a primeira mulher a reger uma orquestra em Portugal, em 1879. Foi apenas quase meio século depois que Francine Benoît (1894-1990) se apresentou à frente de uma orquestra de mulheres, em 1928. Nas décadas entre 1930 e 1960 mais mulheres se aventuraram na direção de orquestra, entre as quais se salientam por atividade regular Berta Alves de Sousa (1906-1997), Natércia Couto (1924-1999) e Elvira de Freitas (1927-2015). Mas a carreira de regente de todas estas mulheres foi curta.

O percurso das mulheres maestras em Portugal foi marcado pelo regime político vigente e pelas suas relações com este, bem como pela ideologia de género dominante e respectiva opressão exercida sobre as mulheres. Neste artigo pretende-se traçar uma genealogia das mulheres maestras em Portugal durante período do autoritarismo de Estado (1926-1974).

Le manuscrit I-Bc Q11: un répertoire pour les moines/religiueuses entre invention et réadaptation
Il manoscritto I-Bc Q11: un repetorio per le monache tra invenzione e riadattamento

Le ms. I-Bc Q11 n’est pas certainement une source négligée par la récherche musicologique, bien que jamais évaluée dans son intégrité et complexité. Les conjectures relatives à son possible emploi par une communauté monastique féminine – entre le début et la deuxième moitié du XIVème siècle – trouvent maintenant des preuves remarquables, fondées surtout sur l’observation des écritures (???) non-musicales dans la source; bien que considérations au niveau du répertoire puissent aussi conduire au même résultat. Ses morceaux polyphoniques sont dignes d’une attention particulière: quelques-uns d’entre eux sont recuellis dans une section homogène, intéressante par sa proximité au répertoire français du motet et, tout spécialement, avec E-BUlh; des autres, répandus dans le manuscrit, sont produits plus ou moins originaux du style polyphonique communément nommé “polyphonie simple”.
Dans le manuscrit les caractères specifiques de la culture musicale des religieuses du Moyen-Âge au Baroque apparaissent d’une façon très claire: en premier lieu la presence, dans les textes, de sujets et de valeurs féminins, avec un lexique et une gamme de similitudes fortement stéréotypes. Infin, l’archaïsme qui marque souvent la musique dediée aux femmes consacrées. 

Il ms. I-Bc Q11 non è certo una fonte trascurata dalle ricerche musicologiche, sebbene mai valutata nella sua interezza e complessità. Le congetture riguardo ad un suo possibile utilizzo presso una comunità monastica femminile – tra l’inizio e la seconda metà del Trecento –, trovano ora interessanti conferme, soprattutto dall’osservazione delle scritture non-musicali all’interno della fonte; sebbene anche considerazioni di carattere repertoriale possano condurre allo stesso risultato. I brani polifonici presenti sono particolarmente degni di attenzione: alcuni raccolti in una sezione omogenea, interessante per la sua prossimità col repertorio mottettistico francese e, in particolare, con E-BUlh; altri sparsi nella fonte, prodotti più o meno originali di quello stile polifonico definito “polifonia semplice”.
Nel manoscritto le qualità specifiche della cultura musicale delle monache dal Medioevo al Barocco appaiono in modo inconfondibile: in primo luogo la presenza, nei testi, di temi e valori femminili, con un lessico e una gamma di similitudini fortemente stereotipe. Infine, l’arcaicità che spesso distingue la musica dedicata alle donne consacrate.

The 1880s saw a burgeoning of exhibitions of ‘Women’s Work’ across the world. These events focused on the artistic and industrial abilities of women, signifying an unprecedented shift away from the emphasis usually placed on maleness and masculinized technology in contemporary exhibition culture. The first Exhibition, held in Bristol in 1885, included a musical novelty: a concert entirely of works composed by women. The next, in Sydney in 1888, included a whole series of such concerts. These concerts—containing works by Kate Loder, Clara Wieck, Fanny Hensel, Agnes Zimmermann, and Maude Valérie White—were extraordinarily well received, applauded in both concept and execution. Yet, their reception appears paradoxical against the contemporary critical climate. In both Britain and Australia, the ‘question’ of women composers was widely debated, and works met with condescension or hostility. By exploring the expectations surrounding displays of ‘women’s work’, I argue that it was the exhibition context itself that influenced the reception of this music. While Exhibitions were conventionally seen as male-gendered events, ‘Women’s’ Exhibitions allowed organizers to blur the distinctions between private and public space. Similarly, while women composers were criticized for their encroachment in the male concert sphere, these Exhibitions also blurred these boundaries and gave critics an appropriate ‘feminine’ framework through which to view and critique the works.

This monograph investigates representations of female musicians in British novels from 1860 to 1900. For nineteenth-century society, music was a means by which women could display their genteel education and express their “selves.” Novelists were quick to employ this recognized way for women to project their personalities, and fictional scenes featuring women musicians served to reinforce or explore and challenge traditional views of the place of both women and music in society. Over the first half of the century, writers like Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë confined their critiques to satirical portrayals of women musicians. Around 1860, however, a marked shift occurred with the introduction of musical female characters who were truly dangerous. The stark boundaries between the musical “angel” and the musical “demon” became increasingly blurred, making more complex the fictional depiction of gender identities and sexuality. Focusing on changing gender roles, musical practices, and the framing of both of these in scientific discourses, the book explores the reasons for this shift.

Contents
Introduction; (1) Musical Women in England, 1860–1900; (2) Harmony and Discord in the Self: Music, Mesmerism and Mental Science; (3) Female Power in Sensation Fiction; (4) Dissonance and Fugue in The Mystery of Edwin Drood; (5) George Eliot: Melody, Evolution and Aesthetics; (6) Recapitulation and Natural Selection in The Mill on the Floss; (7) Sexual Selection and Music: Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda; Conclusion: Trilby

A printed report (relación de sucesos) preserved at the Biblioteca del Palacio da Ajuda in Lisbon contains a short description written in verse of a musical performance organized at the request of the duchess of Alburquerque, head lady-in-waiting of the Queen Maria Anna of Neuburg, and other ladies of the Spanish royal Court when they stopped in Valladolid along their way from Madrid to Santander, on 4 October 1689. The report includes details of the organization of the event and of the vocal and instrumental ensemble in charge of the musical performance, as well as of the musical repertory performed and its impact on this female audience. This paper presents an analysis of the document from a musicological perspective, focusing on the reception among the ladies of «Deidades del Abismo», a song currently preserved in several textual and musical versions. A setting of the music is preserved at the Biblioteca de Catalunya in Barcelona and another version, composed by Leopold I for the performance of Calderón's comedy Fineza contra fineza at the Vienne Imperial Court in 1671 on the occasion of Mary Anne of Austria's birthday, is located at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienne. The song had been performed in several scenic works such as the comedy Eurídice y Orfeo (Madrid, 1655) by Antonio Solís, some of them particularly linked to the women of the Spanish Court. This relación offers an account of a musical event in a private setting, which allows us to catch a glimpse of the place occupied by music in women's daily life and its connotations in the mentalities of the period.

Recensione a Angela Bellia, "Il canto delle vergini locresi. La musica a Locri Epizefirii nelle fonti scritte e nella documentazione archeologica (secoli VI-III a.C.)", Pisa-Roma, Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2012 («Nuovi Saggi», 116), in «Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medievale», 56, 1, 2014, pp. 208-214.

The Palau de la Comtessa (Palace of the Countess) in Barcelona was very centrally located, near the main centres of musical activity in the city such as the cathedral and main parish churches, and it was an important setting for social networking and meetings between members of the nobility, royalty, and government in the early modern period. It should be studied as a case where women’s contribution to the urban soundscape has remained invisible in the historical records, hidden behind the activities of their husbands and sons. For most of the time, it was essentially a female space, since the fathers and husbands of the women who lived there, belonging to the Requesens family—one of the most important Catalan noble families, closely linked to the position of governor of Catalonia—, were usually abroad, fulfilling their diplomatic obligations. The palace chapel was an important urban focus for liturgical celebrations closely related to female worship. The role played by women in the foundation and development of this private chapel has hitherto remained unexplored. However, analysis of documents at the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya in Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) shed further light on this aspect. This paper aims to explore the sounding identity of this building in the context of urban Barcelona as a space in which through diverse music and sounds, a blurring between the private and the public, and the religious and the secular, occurred, and in which the Requesens noblewomen were able to display social status through music both in secular festivities and in devotional celebrations in the palace chapel, which became a major devotional and polyphonic center in the city.

A pianist by profession, Dublin woman Rhoda Coghill (1903–2000) also sought to establish herself as a composer from the 1920s to the early 1940s before abruptly switching her artistic focus to poetry in the late 1940s and 1950s. This article is the first detailed study of Coghill’s work. It explores her career in the first half of the twentieth century chronologically and thematically; it addresses her impact as a performer, the nature of her compositions and the circumstances of their creation, and further claims that her poetry captures the essence of her musical experience and ideas. These themes are considered in relation to nationalist cultural politics as Ireland transitioned from Free State to Republic. As part of this, the institutional influences of Radio Éireann and the Feis Ceoil on Coghill’s musical identity and activities are scrutinized. Building on current developments in Irish musicology and reflecting literary scholars’ recent efforts to reassess Coghill’s importance, this article aims to understand her musical and literary outputs as the expression of a unified aesthetic and to stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue about this underappreciated pianist-composer-poet.

Este estudio analiza las ideas sobre la música en los círculos no profesionales en la España de los siglos XVI y XVII. Por tanto utiliza fuentes poco tenidas en cuenta hasta el momento por los musicólogos en nuestro país: tratados de educación, de filosofía, de medicina, disposiciones de orden público, ordenanzas de teatro, novelas, etc. Se centra en cómo diferentes conceptos de música (arte, técnica, ciencia o entretenimiento) se relacionan con distintos contextos sociales, y cómo estos diferentes conceptos determinaron la práctica musical de las mujeres. También considera de qué manera se percibía la música en la cultura española de la edad moderna, subrayando las implicaciones sociológicas y estéticas de los diferentes géneros musicales en cuanto que se asociaban con las mujeres.

La musique taraab est jouée à l'occasion de mariages et autres fêtes tout au long de la côte de Swahili. Elle contient tous les charactéristiques d'une musique typique de l'« océan indien », combinant des influences égyptiennes, de la péninsule arabe, d'Inde et de l'est. ...

Sapendo che lo scopo della pop music è la vendita, e che sempre più spesso il messaggio utilizzato per raggiungere tale scopo è il sesso, non appare lecito interrogarsi su quanto oggi siano effettivamente importanti i contenuti musicali e quanto invece lo siano quelli visivi? Oppure quanto lʼimmagine femminile proposta rispecchi ed influenzi la cultura stessa?
Sulla base di questi principi e quesiti, questʼArticol Report si propone di analizzare mediante la comparazione di tre articoli, la posizione della donna come performer allʼinterno del music business, in termini di quantità e qualità. Partendo cronologicamente daglʼanni ʼ60 per arrivare fino ai giorni nostri, ponendo lʼattenzione sui nuovi modelli femminili e sul fenomeno Adele, in netto contrasto con un marketing musicale incentrato sulla vendita del proprio corpo.

If thou wilt perish, I will fall with thee. My life, my love, my hatred – all below Are on this cast – Corsair! 'tis but a blow! Without it flight were idle – how evade His sure pursuit? – my wrongs too unrepaid, My youth disgraced, the long, long wasted years, One blow shall cancel ...

Zelo tui langueo / T. [Omnes de Saba] / Reor nescia has been discussed more widely than many other English motets on account of a number of puzzling elements of its content and provenance. Two manuscript copies of the motet survive; in addition, two images of clerics performing the motet are preserved in psalters of the early 14th century, roughly contemporary with the musical sources. The feminine poetic voice used in one of the motet's texted lines has invited speculation that Zelo tui langueo may have been composed or performed by women. The provenance of one musical source (York Minster, Ms. xvi.N.3) offered corroboration, linking the music to a community of monks and nuns from a Gilbertine double house in Shouldham, Norfolk, but this origin was rejected after palaeographical studies undertaken in the last decades of the 20th century. This article examines the motet within a network of various documents, and relocates it musically, textually and socially within devotional life in East Anglia. In addition, it explores elements of the historiography of female music-making in late medieval England.