Details

Subject(s)

• Music by women composers—History and criticism [Browse]
• Music—History and criticism [Browse]
• Feminism and music [Browse]

Editor

• Head, Matthew William [Browse]
• Wollenberg, Susan [Browse]

Series

Cambridge Companions to Music. [More in this series]

Summary note

Moving beyond narratives of female suppression, and exploring the critical potential of a diverse, distinguished repertoire, this Companion transforms received understanding of women composers. Organised thematically, and ranging beyond elite, Western genres, it explores the work of diverse female composers from medieval to modern times, besides the familiar headline names. The book's prologue traces the development of scholarship on women composers over the past five decades and the category of 'woman composer' itself. The chapters that follow reveal scenes of flourishing creativity, technical innovation, and (often fleeting) recognition, challenging long-held notions around invisibility and neglect and dismissing clichés about women composers and their work. Leading scholars trace shifting ideas about composers and compositional processes, contributing to a wider understanding of how composers have functioned in history and making this volume essential reading for all students of musical history. In an epilogue, three contemporary composers reflect on their careers and identities.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Source of description

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources; title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 23 May 2024).

Contents

• Prologue. Studies in Women Composers
• the first 50 years / Matthew Head and Susan Wollenberg
• Part I. Themes in Studying Women composers. Historical Women Composers and the Transience of Female Musical Fame / Paula Higgins ; In Search of a Feminist Analysis / Susan Wollenberg ; Composing Women's History : Beyond Suppression and Separate Spheres / Matthew Head ; Progress and Professionalism / Sophie Fuller ; Women Composers and Feminism / Leah Broad
• Part II. Highlighting Women Composers before 1750. Medieval Women in Composition and Musical Production / Margot Fassler ; Sixteenth-Century Women Composers, Beyond Borders / Laurie Stras ; Women and Composition, c. 1600-1750 / Rebecca Cypess
• Part III. Women Composers c. 1750-1880 : Forms of Musical Culture. Did Women have a Classical Style? / Matthew Head and Susan Wollenberg ; Women, Song, and Subjectivity in the Nineteenth Century / Anja Bunzel and Stephen Rodgers ; Women, Pianos, and Virtuosity in the Nineteenth Century / Joe Davies and Alexander Stefaniak
• Part IV. Women Composers c. 1880-2000 : New waves. First-wave Feminism and Professional Status / Sophie Fuller ; Women Composers, Experimentalism and Technology, 1945-1980 / Louise Gray ; Vibrations : Women in Sound Art, 1980-2000 / Gascia Ouzounian
• Epilogue. Composers' Voices / Nicola Lefanu, Roxanna Panufnik, and Shirley Thompson.

Show 4 more Contents items

Other title(s)

Women composers

ISBN

• 9781108787949
• 1108787940
• 9781108804394
• 110880439X
• 9781108774079
• 1108774075

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