The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers

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

Matthew Head (Edited by), Susan Wollenberg (Edited by)

9781108733519, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 May 2024

376 pages
24.4 x 16.8 x 2 cm, 0.65 kg

'Beautifully curated, sumptuously documented, and well organized, 'The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers' should stand proudly and enduringly in every musician's library.' Claire Fontijn, Notes: the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association

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.

List of figures
List of music examples
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Prologue: studies in women composers – the first fifty years Matthew Head and Susan Wollenberg
Part I. Themes in Studying Women Composers: 1. Historical women composers and the transience of female musical fame Paula Higgins
2. In search of a feminist analysis Susan Wollenberg
3. Composing women's history: beyond suppression and separate spheres Matthew Head
4. Progress and professionalism Sophie Fuller
5. Women composers and feminism Leah Broad
Part II. Highlighting Women Composers Before 1750: 6. Medieval women in composition and musical production Margot Fassler
7. Sixteenth-century women composers, beyond borders Laurie Stras
8. Women and composition, c. 1600–1750 Rebecca Cypess
Part III. Women Composers c. 1750–1880: Forms of Musical Culture: 9. Did women have a classical style? Matthew Head and Susan Wollenberg
10. Women, song, and subjectivity in the nineteenth century Anja Bunzel and Stephen Rodgers
11. Women, pianos, and virtuosity in the nineteenth century Joe Davies and Alexander Stefaniak
Part IV. Women Composers c. 1880–2000: New Waves: 12. First-wave feminism and professional status Sophie Fuller
13. Women composers, experimentalism and technology, 1945–1980 Louise Gray
14. Vibrations: women in sound art, 1980–2000 Gascia Ouzounian
Epilogue: composers' voices Nicola Lefanu, Roxanna Panufnik and Shirley J. Thompson
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Music [AV]