Why are all of the famous composers male? Whe I say famous I mean people like

Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov.... etc. etc.

Just seems odd. Were women not deemed interested? I'm not sure how many female composers there is around today. I guess it's about 50/50.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Basically women were seen as second rate, men dominated. Even today I can't think of any women composers...well Cecilia Macdowell did some flute things. But that is only 1 person...

The only woman i've ever heard who was a composer was Mozart's sister but i'm not very sure about that. Apart from that i don't know any female composer

I am not that familiar with women in society in Europe at the time. I do know that they probably had some musical talent, but even back then, I am pretty sure that all professional musicians were male. In addition, women probably weren't expected/allowed to focus on things like composing - instead, they were kept inside to run the household things. Honestly, I don't think saying that women weren't good enough is an accurate answer. Instead, it has a lot to do with the time period and social/cultural ideas.

It isn't that women weren't good enough, it's that they weren't stupid enough.

The last 150 years has yielded many women composers.

I don't know any female composers off ny heart. Can't believe nearly all of them are male!

Car Expert

Wow. It's amazing how difficult it is to think of female composers.

I guess it's since the ones we know best are from the past. There aren't too much extremely acclaimed modern composers.

Radio 3 has two women composers in its 'Composer of the week' slot, both of whom were eclipsed by male relatives: Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

It wasn't so much that female composers didn't exist, but that their work didn't get the exposure of the male composers.

Only a couple of weeks ago I started a thread : "Who's your favourite female composer?" Have a look at it, you'll discover the "female composing universe" !

Shouldn't that be clever enough?

I agree that until fair education systems were set up the vast majority of women did not have the training in music that men got, and so obviously could not compose or notate music. As society had developed, the discrimination between genders has decreased and so in more modern music, female composers have begun to appear.

Wasn't Chaminade a woman composer? Not sure, but I thought I'd heard/read it somewhere.

Glad someone else has noticed this fact, it was going to be my dissertation topic at Uni but was told it could easily have stretched to a masters. Ended up doing one about Rocky Horror and it's links to John Cage!!!

Yes, Cecile Chaminade. (In)famous for the flute concertino, although I prefer Serenade aux etoiles.

I discovered from the other thread that Claude Arrieu was also female.

In the 19th century, there were already many female performing musicians, but much less composers. Clara Schumann was not only a brilliant pianist, she composed good stuff too. I heard some of her songs and piano romances, and her piano concerto, written at the age of 15. But unfortunately, her husband Robert Schumann discouraged her to compose. Likewise, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy discouraged his sister Fanny to compose, though she was very gifted as well.
In earlier ages, only very few women were so lucky to be left alone with there composing business, like Hildegard von Bingen in the 13th century and Barbara Strozzi, the only woman of all 17th century who managed to publish her own music. She was a rich man's daughter and a good singer too.

Indeed, it's just that women didn't have the opportunity to do things in the same way that men did: women didn't have jobs composing or whatever but were at home looking after the house, and were often considered inferior. The women even if they did compose probably couldn't get the same exposure that the mend did (can't help but feel I'm setting one up for Sir P here ). There were a few famous women composers in the past (mostly relatives of famous male composers) but now with women having careers as well as men the proportion of female composers is slightly higher although there are still more men.

Something controversial: according to statistics for every female genius there are 5 male geniuses so those who lasted the course we would expect to be a 5 to 1 male to female ratio if women weren't supressed anyway. If I say I'm female does that make me any less likely to be repremanded for that comment ?

As per other responses, it was socially not acceptable for a woman to be seen to be proficient in this area. Even in the Victorian times, if a woman was musical she would typically learn the piano so that she could be seen to be accompanying (supporting) her husband who would probably play a melodious instrument (violin etc.)

There are some interesting letters from Mendelssohn's sister (Fanny Hensel) where she complains to her brother about the need to conform to the stereotypes that were dictated at that time. According to some commentators she was arguably more talented than her younger brother, but of course she didn't have the opportunities he did, with the result that her achievements are regarded largely by academics only.

Still, if you look back a long way you find the fabled abbess Hildegard of Bingen. From the late 19th century onwards there is a trickle of relatively well known and regarded female composers: Amy Beach, Dame Ethyl Smyth, Elisabeth Lutyens, Elizabeth Maconchy etc. etc. etc.

Wasn't there a lady of the Bach family who wrote, or was she just written for (Anna Magdalena, possibly?)

I could be thinking of someone totally different!

JSB's second wife...

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote that book of preludes for Anna Magdalena, apparently a beginning pianist at the time !

Strange this topic should appear now. I've just been listening to E. Lutyens' Dialogo and Ruth Gibbs' Symphony 4.

Ruth Gipps?

Oh right! I knew I'd seen the name somewhere.

'Fraid that was my best offer!

One of the most interesting living woman composers is Galina Ustvolskaya: really stunning and uncompromising music in every way. Here's a useful article about her: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/02/ustvolskaya.html .

Now you have me wondering. This is a private recording. I shall check. Thanks for pointing it out.

If you are interested in contemporary music I think you will find many feminine composers. There have been CDs dedicated to british female composers.

Kai-Lei

Diane Warren is a composer and she's a woman....

Perhaps we're all being a teensty bit too politically correct here. Although they struggled to get into print in earlier times, women have been prolific writers of fiction and poetry for several generations now, so why not composers?

Even in current times I keep meeting people who tell me they're writing music for film or television and they're nearly always male.

There ARE differences between men and women and it's foolish to deny them or pretend they don't exist, and this doesn't for a moment mean that equal opportunities shouldn't be extended to all as a matter of principle.

But consider this: without thinking, clasp your hands together with interlocking fingers. Some of us will automatically put our left thumb on top of our right, and some of us will put our right thumb on top of our left. In the vast majority of cases, men will put the right thumb on top, and women the left. This must almost certainly be to do with which side of the brain is dominant; if the composing of music is more likely to stem from one side of the brain than the other, then it would figure that more of one gender will be good at it. A shame but a possibility nevertheless.

That's not to say that women weren't held down for years - they were, no question. And (I'm talking only of the Western world here) there still isn't equal pay for equal work - no question. And there's still a glass ceiling, although funnily enough not for women without children - think of Janet Street Porter for example. The fact is that most women with children just aren't prepared to farm their children out as much as they'd have to in order to rise to the top in the working world and stay there.

It's a complex subject, that's certain.

Violinia

We've got onto the second page (admittedly, most of page two is an unsightly scrap between Semele and various people she suspects of being the late lamented Rhapsodin), and no-one's mentioned Alma Mahler. A composer in her own right, and wife of the great Gustav.

To pick up on mrbouffant's point, one other reason for young ladies to learn the piano was the theory that if they were spending all their time practicing piano, they couldn't be getting up to unladylike mischief elsewhere. Plus, it made a very audible chaperone!

One notable exception is Debbie Wiseman who has written several excellent film scores. I really like the gorgeous one she did for Wilde (about the eponymous Oscar), and you can hear the main title theme at her web site http://www.debbiewiseman.co.uk/ , click Soundbytes.

Hm, I remember Semele disrupting the first messages I posted on this forum.

But to the point, the Bronte's are a fine example, possibly because of their unusual circumstances, of 'bringing women out'. Their rebellious writings were not liked at the time. Ann Bronte (in particular) regarding husbands!

Gisele Ben-Dor and Odaline de la Martinez have been very active in promoting females in music.

edit:
oh-oh, here we go again. This message was a response to Violinia and Deborah.

Message erased.

Errr, I might be being dim, but I don't see what that link has to do with female composers. And I'm getting bored of the off-topic stuff.....

But anyway, I need to put in another plug for a fantastic composer, particularly of vocal music - Dilys Elwyn Edwards.

These are balanced by similar ratios of below average intelligence, where once again men predominate. This is to be expected from the nature of the sex chromosomes: in women a defect on one X chromosome can be compensated by a correct sequence on the other, but men have only one, so men are more variable in many characteristics.

Some more female composers, not yet mentioned on this thread (or I've missed them):
Barbara Strozzi, 1619-after 1663; Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, c.1666-1729; Thea Musgrave, b. 1928; Judith Weir, b. 1954; Rhian Samuel (not in my old Grove Dictionary, but still flourishing); Sofiya Gubaydulina, b. 1931; Nicola LeFanu, b. 1947 (daughter of Elizabeth Maconchy).

In my studies, I have met many talented young women composers, with aural imaginations that I envied.

Having looked at women in society for my dissertation, I can suggest that there are very few regognised women composers simply because they didn't write things down. Take for example recipes, passed down through generations by word of mouth. Who's to say it isn't the same with music? There are so many 'anon's where the composer should be taking credit - maybe that's where all the women composers are.

There are various tutors on the market.For example, Pamela Wedgwood,Pauline Hall,Fanny Waterman ( she tutors at Leeds ),Joanna Macgregor to name but a few.

Ms MacG is also very pretty.

I was about to suggest Pam Wedgwood (I think she's great!). If you look down the ABRSM exam lists, you'll see there are plenty of female composers nowadays. I think in the past it was mainly a question of exposure. For Grade 7 Saxophone I played a lovely piece by a composer called Amy Quate. Some fairly prolific women composing and editing at the moment are: Sally Adams, Beverly Calland, Pauline Hall (or is it Hill? Of Piano Time fame?)

Additionally, when I studied composition at university, our class was split 50/50 between males and females - in my final year class, there were four girls and four boys. I will admit right now that I was one of the less talented ones, but there were two girls in that class who were brilliant - Carol Chan, and Julia Something-I've-Forgotten. I'm sure they'll go far!

I haven't published anything, but have written a couple of hundred works, mostly things for college and for my students.

Ellie

Type in women or female composers on google and see what comes up.It's very interesting.

I use Pamela Wedgwood pieces a lot in my lessons.She's fab!

Just did that, wow, I've got a lot of reading to do now - it's so interesting.

I think it used to be a man's world in many ways (not just in music) and fortunately this is changing. But now I think about it, female conductors are still unusual, and until the late 1960s female rock/ pop musicians were rare too. I think things are slowly shifting.

The best composer in our class was James Gosling. He's written for film and TV already and he's my age (28). But I don't think that was due to being born male. He always knew exactly what he wanted to do, and went out and did it. I always knew I wanted to teach, so that's what I did. Mind you, I wouldn't mind being a footnote in a book about minor British composers one day. Maybe when I'm about 85.

Edit: the other girl was Julia Simpson. I googled her too, and she seems to be doing well! She is also the same age as me.

Moving on to Rock composers/musicians I can think of quite a few talented females there. I quite like Janis Ian and Carole King to name but two. But I also liked Kirsty MacColl ( her dad was Ewan...he wrote First Time Ever I Saw Your Face....song in Play Misty For Me..Clint Eastwood film ).Her death was tragic.

I wish you all the best in your composing.

Must go now...done nothing today.

Best Wishes.

PS I will look her up and Mr Gosling.

Indeed they are it seems that exam statistics often show 'girls are brighter than boys' as the press would have it as more girls seem to sit in the 'above average category' but in the very top flights (which we don't really observe through school exams due to the ceiling effect) it's usually the boys who are at the very top.

Assuming the only composers to last generations would be those in the very top of their field we would naturally expect, therefore, that most of them would be male. Of course this makes the critical assumption that what applies to intelligence applies to compositional ability, but it seems to be prevalent in those making it to the top of their instruments too: it seems to be mostly girls who take up instrument tuition but compared to the ratios that take it up the men are out-doing women in terms of numbers at the top.

Although being female I guess I should resent these statistics, I do not, they fit with my observations of those around me in my every day life. It does frustrate me, though, when the media mistake the statistics to make statements like 'men are cleverer than women' which is simply not true, it's just that for every one woman that clever there are 5 men equally clever, women as talented as those men do exist, and were probably, as past composers, just not recognised due to social factors. I know only one person who I would class as a genius (and being an academic I do know quite a lot of people most people would call a genius....) and this person was female. A mathematician in fact who was autistic, beat everyone in her year at Cambridge by a good margin and was right at the top in contention for many maths olympiads. I don't think this disproves the theory, looking at her competitors they were mostly male, she's just the one I happened to know.

Women seem to succeed more (and always have done) in writing; maybe this means that composition is more mathematical and less creative than we thought....

James Gosling has an imdb entry!

women didnt have a lot of rights and education back then.
mozart's sister Maria Anna Mozart is one, or just call her Nannerl. Clara Schumann is a big one. almost better than her husband. Fanny Mendelssohn is not just "Mendelssohn's sister", she earned respect by her own skills.

The poor woman was probably too busy breast-feeding and changing nappies to compose much herself. If she wrote anything at all, then all credit to her - I wonder would JS have been so prolific if he's had to feed and change all those children himself?

P.S. It's good to see the resurrection of some old threads that fizzled out!

Betty Roe is a living composer who wrote a huge amount of songs, children's shows and a couple of operas. The ABRSM uses her songs for grades, but she also wrote really difficult stuff as well.
I had the pleasure of meeting her at an ISM meeting a couple of ears ago, and hearing a recital.

Composing is NOT a male perogative. If you Google "Women Composers" you will find hundreds.

There are many cultural and historical reasons why the work of women composers (and writers, to a lesser extent) has often been ignored. Fortunately women are slowly but surely taking their proper place in the world.

I have to stop before I get on my feminist soap box.......