Gender, Professionalism and the Musical Canon

Author(s): Marcia J. Citron

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 102-117
Published by: University of California Press
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 Gender, Professionalism
and the Musical Canon*
MARCIA J. CITRON

In the field of literature the concept of the

canon functions as a basic tool in defining the scope of the discipline.
Works admitted to this prestigious group command deep respect and
form the literary core perpetuated in English curricula. They become
source material for critical discourse and set exclusionary standards
for works whose quality and thematic content do not meet certain
disciplinary criteria.
As evidenced by the session "Musicology and Its Canons" at the
102 1987 annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, our dis-
cipline has recently appropriated the term as a useful construct for
self-analysis. For us "canon" is more or less equivalent with "standard
repertoire." We can think of it as a loosely codified organism, broadly
accepted, with some degree of flexibility on small exchanges or new
members. It does, however, exhibit recalcitrant behavior on wholesale
changes, for these reflect major shifts in aesthetic viewpoint that tend
to evolve over a period of time. As in our correlate discipline the
power wielded by the canon is enormous: its members are presumed
best and thus most deserving of reiteration in performance, in schol-
arship, and in teaching.
But even a cursory glance at these musical activities reveals that
works by women are absent from the canon. One is hard-pressed to
find them in concert programs and in the standard music histories
and anthologies. With regard to anthologies, for example, the new
edition of The Norton Anthologyof WesternMusic, issued in 1988, in-
cludes only one piece by a woman, a monophonic "canso" by the
Countess of Dia, in its two-volume compendium of 163 works. In
addition to the extremely low percentage, one is surprised to find no
Volume VIII * Number i * Winter 1990
The Journal of Musicology ? 1990 by the Regents of the University of California

* This article is an
expanded version of a paper presented in the
session "Cultural and Aesthetic Issues" at the annual meeting of
the American Musicological Society, November 1988, Baltimore.

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

representation among recent periods of music, where women have

been more visible. Another anthology, Leon Plantinga's RomanticMu-
sic, from 1984, excludes any representation by women, although the
accompanying textbook cites Corona Schroter as composer of the first
setting of "Der Erlkonig," and later provides a brief discussion of
Fanny Hensel and Clara Schumann. Both the third and fourth edi-
tions of The Norton Scores (1977, 1984), edited by Roger Kamien,
include one work by a woman, a movement from Ruth Crawford
Seeger's String Quartet of 1931. Although one is glad to see some
representation by women in most of these collections, still the very low
percentage is disappointing.'
Women's exclusion has played a role in creating what feminist
literary critic Lillian Robinson has dubbed a "counter canon:" an al-
ternative repertoire made up entirely of works by women.2 This is
epitomized most directly in the recent Historical Anthologyof Music by
Women, edited by James Briscoe.3 The first of its kind, this gender-
uniform collection owes its genesis and raison d'etre largely to the
theory of compensatory history and the related notion of the "excep-
tion woman" and her accomplishments. Such a presentation functions
as an important and necessary first stage in a discipline's serious ex- 103
ploration of its forgotten female figures. Musicology, in this regard, is
still in its infancy compared to the field of literature, and to a lesser
extent, the field of history.4

1 See also James Briscoe, "Integrating Music by Women into the Music History
Sequence," College Music SymposiumXXV (1985), 21-27; and Diane Jezic and David
Binder, "A Survey of College Music Textbooks: Benign Neglect of Women Compos-
ers," The Musical Woman, volume 2, ed. Judith Lang Zaimont, Catherine Overhauser,
and Jane Gottlieb (Westport, Ct., 1987), 445-69.
2
"Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon," Tulsa Studiesin
Women'sLiteratureII (1983), 83-98. For an earlier essay on women's role in the literary
canon see Elaine Showalter, "Women and the Literary Curriculum," College English
XXXII (1970-71), 855-62.
3 Published in
1987 by Indiana University Press; accompanying tapes are forth-
coming. A companion volume, the first comprehensive history, is the forthcoming
Womenand Music: A History,cooperatively written, and edited by Karin Pendle. Another
resource is Diane Jezic's biographical overview of twenty-five composers, WomenCom-
posers: The Lost TraditionFound (New York, 1988), with accompanying tapes.
4 One fundamental difference between the Briscoe
anthology and traditional
anthologies is the former's assumption of gender as a necessary condition for inclusion
and as an essential analytic category for the prose introductions to each work. In
traditional collections gender is not a stated necessary condition for inclusion nor a
category for analysis, although the de facto result is the near or total exclusion of
women. Gender thus functions as a non-issue. Such categorical non-existence generally
occurs when the norms and values of the dominant culture, in this case male society, are
assumed for all of society. A similar pattern pertains to the categories of class and race.
See Joan W. Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," AmericanHis-
torical Review XCI/5 (December 1986), 1053-75. Regarding compensatory history see
Gerda Lerner, "Placing Women in History: A 1975 Perspective," in LiberatingWomen's

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

Yet the ultimate goal is not separatism but integration into the
mainstream of Western musical history. But at this juncture we have
to wonder about the reasons for women's absence from the tradition
as represented by the canon, an absence that denies validity, voice,
and authority. This article will attempt to provide some answers by
examining the complex web of factors involved in canon formation,
and by demonstrating how certain gender-specific factors have
worked to the detriment of women with regard to that process. Com-
posers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will serve as
examples. The study will also pose challenges towards the adoption of
works by women into the canon.

I
First let us hone in more precisely on what we
mean by canon. For there are several different canons, for example
the canon of early music, of avant-garde music, of ethnomusicology.
I am focusing mainly on the mainstream of Western art music as
embodied in the teaching of music history. By and large, especially
104 after 1725, this coincides with the canon of professional performing
organizations.
Canon formation is complex and embraces a wide swathe of fac-
tors that rest on a dual chronological base: conditions and attitudes
prevalent at the time of composition and those in force at present. Let
us trace briefly the etiquette on the early end.
A composition first has to be written, then it has to be published
in order to be circulated, at least after ca. 1780. It has to reach public
consciousness by a first performance and then remain there through
some regularity of performance. This is less likely to happen without
some critical attention in print and a positive assessment at least some-
time near the work's debut. Although these steps seem the most basic
stages on the road to permanency and potential canonization, they
actually take place well into the process. As we back up a few notches
we confront gender-linked conditions and conventions that thwart
women's chances for professional status, a requisite for potential
canonic inclusion.

History, ed. Berenice A. Carroll (Urbana, 1976), 357-67. Another seminal study is
Hilda Smith, "Feminism and the Methodology of Women's History," in the same col-
lection, 368-84. The historical model of the "exception woman" is that only few
women-the exceptions-have been able to escape the more typical path expected of
women and overcome male-imposed obstacles and achieve success. These issues serve
as backdrop to Ruth Solie's discussion of biography and gender in her review of Nancy
Reich's Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman(Ithaca, 1985), in 19th-Century Music
X/i (Summer 1986), 74-80.

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

First, an aspiring composer must receive an adequate music ed-

ucation. Basic theoretical skills, particularly harmony, counterpoint,
and orchestration, are critical. Women, however, faced a distinct dis-
advantage: regular and systematic denial of access to the full range of
compositional training. I will illustrate with two examples.
First is the French composer Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944).
Both Felix Le Couppey, prominent professor at the Conservatoire,
and Georges Bizet, a neighbor in Le Vesinet, recognized the young
girl's creative talents, in the late 186os. Each urged that she study at
the Conservatoire. But her father forbade it, basing patriarchal ob-
jections on normative codes for young women of their class. As a
compromise Chaminade was permitted to study privately with Con-
servatoire professors. Her father feared she might fall prey to nega-
tive moral influences at a public institution, and like many a father
Hippolyte Chaminade was attempting to protect his daughter. But as
a result Cecile missed out on the full breadth of institutional educa-
tion, which promotes group socialization, individual contacts, and ex-
posure to other ideas as much as it sharpens musical skills. Perhaps
one can attribute much of Chaminade's later isolation and stylistic
conservatism to her isolated music education.5 105
The second case is Mabel Daniels (1878-1971), an aspiring Amer-
ican composer. A student at the Munich Conservatory around 1902,
Daniels related how there had never been a female student in the
score-reading class and how she elicited both curiosity and astonish-
ment once admitted to it. She also detailed other institutional prohi-
bitions:

... five years ago women were not allowed to study counterpointat
the conservatory.In fact, anything more advancedthan elementary
harmonywas debarred.The abilityof the feminine intellect to com-
prehend the intricaciesof a stretto, or cope with double counter-
point in the tenth, if not openly denied, was severely questioned.
The counterpointclass is now open to women, although as yet com-
parativelyfew availthemselvesof the opportunity.Formerly,too, all
the teachers in the conservatorywere men, but one finds today two
women enrolled as professors among the forty on the list.6

From the vantage point of 1933 Ethel Smyth, the indomitable

British composer and suffragette, offered the following summary ob-
5 This information is based on the
unpublished biography of Chaminade written
by her niece, Antoinette Lorel, in family possession. See also the "Biography" chapter
of Citron, Cecile Chaminade:A Bio-Bibliography(Westport, Ct., 1988), pp. 3-32.
6 Daniels, An American Girl in Munich (Boston,
1905), pp. 39-44, as reprinted in
Carol Neuls-Bates, Womenin Music: An Anthologyof SourceReadingsfrom the Middle Ages
to the Present (New York, 1982), 219-22.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

servation: "there is not at this present moment one single middle-aged

woman alive who has had the musical education that has fallen to men
as a matter of course, without any effort on their part, ever since
music was."7
The next step towards professionalism is publication. This boasts
a poor record with regard to women: only a small percentage of their
works have appeared in print. At first glance publication seems an
open-and-shut situation, a decision based on merit and anticipated
profit for the publisher. Yet certain factors of social organization and
practices have impinged forcefully on the issue and rendered publi-
cation anything but quality- or economics-based.
Before 1800 musical activity was organized around political and
ecclesiastical units, and publication was subvented by patrons. These
dignitaries were supporting the creative products of composers in
their employ. The catch, however, is that women were institutionally
excluded from such employment: both traditional conventions and
formal proscriptions precluded such occupation and status. Thus the
natural outlet for publication or manuscript circulation was closed to
women.
106 After 18oo, when music moved into the public domain and the
demand for new pieces gradually yielded to the concept of repeating
classics,8 publication was inextricably linked with the sustainability of
a piece, that is, repeat performance. This held true particularly for
pieces deploying large forces, which entail a significant outlay of
money and become losing propositions unless performed regularly.
An important component in procuring performances was regular
access to the musical establishment, that heterogeneous corps of pro-
fessionals consisting of other composers, and of performers, conduc-
tors, impresarios, and board members of major performing organi-
zations. Women, in general, experienced enormous difficulty in
forging those necessary contacts, largely through gender-specific
conditions.9

7 From
chapter 2 ("Women's Training Hitherto") of Smyth's Female Pipings in
Eden (1933), as quoted in Neuls-Bates, p. 286.
8
J. Peter Burkholder has written on this salient but neglected aspect of music
sociology. See his "Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last
Hundred Years," Journal of Musicology 1/2 (Spring 1983), 115-34; and "Brahms and
Twentieth-Century Classical Music," 19th-CenturyMusic VIII/i (Summer 1984), 75-83.
9
Many of these difficulties were subtle. Ethel Smyth, in her typically forthright
and common-sensical way, brought up two fundamental points. "To take the bull by the
horns, the chief difficulty women musicians have to face is that in no walk of life do men
like to see us come barging in on their preserves." Although casting this as a criticism,
Smyth characterized the situation as natural and understandable. She felt the same
towards her next point, which is that "innocent clannishness" among men has excluded
women. "You can't get rid of the colleague element, nor deny that men are nearer to

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

The case of Fanny Hensel (1805-47) serves as a useful illustra-

tion. A prolific and recognizably talented composer from youth, she
was nonetheless purposely steered away from the world of musical
contacts, on account of her sex, by her father.1o This course con-
trasted markedly with that of her brother Felix Mendelssohn. He
entered his professional apprenticeship by making the pilgrimage to
Goethe in Weimar, in 1821, and then going to Paris four years later
to pass muster from Cherubini and taste musical life in its full ex-
pression. The rites of passage were completed when he began his
grand tour in 1829 to England and to the Continent. His prolific cor-
respondence discloses the significance of these trips for his budding
career; they turned him into a professional and provided him the
opportunity of access to major figures of all stripes in the field of
music.ll Hensel was denied this opportunity. Thus no wonder that,
ensconced in her private salon, she had practically no public perfor-
mance of her works, not to mention repeat performances. Very few
compositions were published.12
The Hensel/Mendelssohn dichotomy underscores another
gender-linked disadvantage associated with repeat performances.
Women were not hired as conductors and thus denied a natural outlet 107
for performance of at least some of their works. Mendelssohn, in
contrast, through his positions in Leipzig and Berlin, and guest ap-
pearances in England and elsewhere, had performing groups at his
disposal, could revise his orchestral works through repeat perfor-
mances, and thus perfect them for publication.l3 The performances

other men than they can ever be to women" (FemalePipings in Eden [1933], as excerpted
in Neuls-Bates, pp. 290-91).
'o See note 20 below.
" The great majority of his letters to the family are located in the New York
Public Library. No complete edition has yet appeared, but many key letters have been
published, as in Rudolf Elvers's compilation of selected letters, MendelssohnBartholdy
Briefe (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), and in Peter Sutermeister's edition of the Continen-
tal Tour, Eine Reise durch Deutschland,Italien und die Schweiz(Zurich, 1958).
12 See
Citron, "Felix Mendelssohn's Influence on Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as
a Professional Composer," CurrentMusicologyXXXVII/XXXVIII (1984), 9-17; and the
introductory essay "The Relationship Between Fanny and Felix" in Citron, Lettersof
Fanny Hensel to Felix Mendelssohn(New York, 1987), xxxi-xliv.
13 The case of Brahms's
SymphonyNo. 4 illustrates the advantages of performance
prior to publication. It was issued in October 1886 only after numerous public perfor-
mances from manuscript, from early November 1885 to at least mid May 1886. Brahms
apparently used these performances as "Proben," both tests and rehearsals, to try out
the piece and make revisions as needed prior to the permanent version. Another angle
on the importance of performances is provided by Ethel Smyth, who observed that
"until a work is performed, it is impossible even for the composer to form a true
judgment on its merit" (Female Pipings in Eden, as excerpted in Neuls-Bates, pp. 286-
87).

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

also ensured continued public exposure and thus potentialized the

chances for becoming part of the canon.
The fact that several women have felt compelled to conceal their
femaleness and assume authorship under a neutral or masculine
identity shows that gender prejudice has indeed been a very real issue,
as in literature, where one encounters, for example, the male pseud-
onyms Georges Sand and George Eliot. The ruse promoted profes-
sional respect and creative authority as well as gender-neutral critical
assessment. Clara Schumann, for instance, contributed Lieder to a
joint collection with Robert; here, with both names affixed to the title
page, one could not identify which songs were by Clara, which by
Robert. Hensel had gone further towards concealment when she per-
mitted her first published pieces to bear the authorship of her brother
Felix.'4 Ethel Smyth herself signed her compositions with the neutral
E. M. Smyth. In 1975 Edith Borroff related her own experience when
an aspiring composer:

After earning the degrees in compositionI found that performance

and publicationof my music were inseparablylinked with my sex: all
108 worksthat I submittedwith my right name were rejected(allbut one
unopened-and that with a letter saying that my work was "deserv-
ing of performance"yet not offering to perform it); conversely,the
two that I submittedwith male pseudonym were accepted. When I
gave up the subterfuge on principle, I virtually relinquished any
chance for significant activity as a composer until the late 196os,
when attitudesbegan to change.15

Critical reception is the next marker on the professional path.

This, of course, assumes the fact of performance and usually publi-
cation as well. Unfortunately women have been subjected to gender-
linked evaluation, placing them in a "separate but not equal" category
that has widened the gulf between themselves and the homogeneous
canon. William S. Newman was one of the first mainstream musicol-
ogists to isolate gender-linked criticism, in his discussion of female
composers of sonatas in the nineteenth century:

14 Clara and Robert's collection,

Zwolf Gedichteaus F. Riickert's"Liebesfriihling,"
Op.
37/12. See Reich, Clara Schumann, 248-49. Three each of Hensel's Lieder appeared in
Felix's Opp. 8 and 9 (1827, 1830). For an overview of women's relationship to the Lied
in the early nineteenth century see Citron, "Women and the Lied, 1775-1850," Women
Making Music: The WesternArt Tradition, 1150-1950, ed. Jane Bowers & Judith Tick
(Urbana, 1986), 224-48. Feminist explorations of writing and authorship in various
disciplines appear in the anthology The FemaleAutograph,ed. Domna C. Stanton (Chi-
cago, 1987).
15 "Women
Composers: Reminiscence and History," CollegeMusic SymposiumXV
(1975), p. 27.

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

Intentionallyor not, these women were put in a classof their own by

the reviewers,who were invariablywell-meaningbut invariablycav-
alier, too, and who seldom completed a review without at least im-
plying that the sonata was "surprisinglygood for a woman" and
showed "fine skill if not much inspiration."'6

But the analytical category has obtained for all types of pieces. It
became entrenched around 1900, when women were attempting to
crack the professional-composer enclave in greater numbers. The
criticism set up a no-win standard that boiled down to "damned if you
do, damned if you don't." Women composers were criticized as being
true to their sex if their music exhibited supposedly feminine traits,
yet derided as attempting to be masculine if their music embodied
so-called virile traits. Judith Tick and others coined the term sexual
aesthetics to describe this gender-based theory.l7
The compositions of Cecile Chaminade, for instance, were regu-
larly deemed charming and graceful-aesthetically in accord with the
sex of their creator-and often criticized for being too feminine. Yet
on other occasions Chaminade was berated for stepping beyond ac-
ceptable limits, as in the following review, from 1889, of her Concert- 109
stiick, Op. 40, for piano and orchestra:

[It is] a work that is strong and virile, too virile perhaps, and that is
the reproach I would be tempted to address to it. For me, I almost
regretted not having found further those qualitiesof grace and gen-
tleness that reside in woman'snature, the secrets of which she pos-
sesses to such a degree.l8

The exclusionism at the heart of gender-linked criticism and of

other deterrents to professionalism also lies at the center of a major
assumption underlying the theory of canon formation: the large
forms hold greater value than the small forms. Not only a long-held
belief in music, the concept of a hierarchization of genre has been a
staple of critical theory in allied fields as well. In painting, for in-
stance, the portrait was considered inferior to the history painting or
landscape. In literature the novel was subordinate to the essay or the
16
In chapter 3, "The Sonata in Romantic Society," in The Sonata Since Beethoven
(Chapel Hill, 1969), p. 63.
17 For
example in Tick's excellent essay, "Passed Away is the Piano Girl," in
WomenMaking Music, p. 86.
18 . .. une oeuvre forte et virile, trop virile meme, et c'est le reproche queje serais
tente de lui adresser. J'ai presque regrette, pour mon compte, de n'y point trouver
davantage ce cachet de grace et de douceur qui rentre dans la nature de la femme et
dont elle possede si bien tous les secrets" ("Quatorzieme Concert Populaire," Angers
Revue, [late February] 1889).

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

biography. In our field the strata became pronounced when music

settled in the public arena and contemporary criticism assumed the
qualitative distinctions as a given. Then, as the concept of a repertoire
of masterpieces of the past gained legitimacy, the favored larger
genres occupied the lion's share of the canon. And thus it has con-
tinued to the present.
As intimated the larger genres were the public genres. By analogy
the smaller forms were intended for more private performance. Gen-
der emerged as a significant distinguishing factor, as women both
literally and metaphorically inhabited the private sphere: the pre-
scribed locus of their education, socialization, and fulfillment. Thus it
was natural for women to be socialized into the smaller musical
genres.
By the end of the nineteenth century composing in small forms
was deemed a decidedly lesser activity. Reviewers regularly made a
gender/genre association and as a result invariably cast negative as-
persions on pieces in smaller forms. The term "salon music" became
virtually co-terminous with "woman's music." As such it implied am-
ateurism and hence a lesser creative worth. Soon, regardless of qual-
110 ity, the very fact of genre predicted relegation to a lesser status: au-
tomatic trivialization. Such denigration rendered potential
admittance into the canon well-nigh impossible. Since it was women
who were mainly composing such works, their devaluation functioned
as de facto exclusion from the canon.

II
Thus far we have discussed the obstacles facing
women in attaining professionalism because of social realities of the
musical machinery and because of two significant assumptions under-
lying musico-critical theory. All, however, are symptoms of a more
basic reality: pervasive philosophical bias against women as creators.
In the last few hundred years polemics on women's attributes and
abilities have centered on the essentialism of women, that is, on her
innate characteristics, by definition present in everyone of the sex.
Whereas many manifestations of this line of argument have dwelled
on the biological, in the case of composition they have usually em-
phasized some non-tangible quality of her persona as the source re-
sponsible for the particular flaw or weakness. In the late nineteenth
century George Upton's seminal book Woman in Music both crystal-
lized current thinking and served as a point of departure.19 Upton

19 Upton, Womanin Music (Chicago, 1892). It first came out in 1880 (Boston) and
went through another edition in 1886, which apparently served as the basis of reprints,
as in 1890 and 1892.

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

articulated what he and others viewed as the paradox of woman's

innate emotionalism co-existent with her inability to channel it effec-
tively into creativity in music, that most emotional art form. Woman
lacked the ability to control emotion with logic and reason, masculine
attributes requisite for composition. Her importance lay instead in
her role as helpmate, or muse, to successful male composers, and also
as performer. Upton's theories offered yet another trope on anti-
feminist arguments resonant in eminent thinkers like Rousseau and
Kant, as in the former's denial of literary creativity in women:

Women, in general, don't like any art, are not well versed in any, and
have no talentfor it. They can acquireknowledge... and all that can
be acquiredthrough hard work. But that celestialfire that emblazens
and ignites the soul, that quality of genius that consumes and de-
vours, . . . those sublime ecstasies that reside in the depths of the
heart-these will alwaysbe lacking in the writingsof women.20

Echoed numerous times by succeeding generations, Upton's ideas

exerted a powerful influence. The psychologist Grace Rubin-Rabson,
for example, reiterated a similar essentialist position in 1973 in a 1
debate in High Fidelityand Musical America.2 Some thirty-three years
earlier Carl Seashore, noted writer on the psychology of music, had
published a variation on the standard essentialist theme.22 While
women are not deficient in the basics of native ability, they do, how-
ever, possess "a fundamental urge ... to be beautiful, loved, and
adored." This propensity propels them toward the ingrained "eternal

20
"Les femmes, en g6enral, n'aiment aucun art, ne se connoissent a aucun, et
n'ont aucun genie. Elles peuvent acqu6rir de la science ... et tout ce qui s'acquiert a
force de travail. Mais ce feu celeste qui echauffe et embrase l'ame, ce genie qui consume
et d6vore, . . . ces transports sublimes qui portent leurs ravissemens jusqu'au fond des
coeurs, manqueront toujours aux 6crits des femmes, ..." (Lettrea M. d'Alembertsur les
spectacles[Amsterdam, 1758], p. 193n). Kant viewed woman as an aesthetic object of
beauty and refined sensibility in whom erudition was inappropriate, in his Beobachtun-
gen iber das Gefihl des Schinen und Erhabenen,published in 1764. My thanks to philos-
opher Carol Van Kirk for bringing this work to my attention. Kant's belief in woman's
ornamental value was espoused by other Enlightenment figures, such as Moses Men-
delssohn and his son Abraham, Felix and Fanny's father. Abraham, in fact, had ad-
monished Fanny to remain true to her sex by limiting the extent of her learning and by
utilizing her musical gifts for decorative enhancement rather than professional prep-
aration (letters to Fanny of 16 July 1820 and 14 November 1828, in Sebastian Hensel,
The MendelssohnFamily 1729-1847, tr. Carl Klingemann, 2 volumes, 2nd ed. [New
York, 1882], volume i, pp. 82, 84).
21
"Why Haven't Women Become Great Composers?," XXIII/2 (February 1973),
46-53. Judith Rosen argued the case for women based primarily on their lack of access
to the musical machinery.
22 Carl Seashore, "Why No Great Women Composers?," Music EducatorsJournal
XXV/5 (March 1940), 21, 88. Reprinted in Neuls-Bates, 297-302.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

feminine" that is part of their nature. Furthermore, this female af-

finity contrasts with "the persistent male type:" in contemporary fem-
inist parlance, binary opposition between female passiveness and male
assertiveness. Incidentally, Seashore's anachronistic allusions to the
eternal feminine, that idealizing yet deindividualizing nineteenth-
century ethos stemming from Goethe's Faust, indicate a conservative
outlook.
Such comments represent an aesthetic climate that has under-
mined women's creative achievements. Naturally no one utterance
has had direct bearing on the canon. Nonetheless, against this back-
drop of assumed belief, it is easy to see how women as a group have
dropped out of sight and out of mind as even possibilities for serious
study and performances. So here we stand today, with our gender-
uniform musical canon. Assuming we do not espouse the negative
essentialist view towards woman as composers, we move to the next
level of argument. We cannot change the events and attitudes of the
past, and thus we cannot change the reality of its neglect and deni-
gration of women's compositions and other professional efforts. The
issue rests squarely on our shoulders. How do we deal with the situ-
112 ation?
First, since music by women was submerged for a variety of rea-
sons, we have to go beyond our basic impulse that assumes that if a
piece has not survived it is automatically unworthy of consideration
for serious performance and study.
Second, in order to arrive at a just assessment of women's works,
other factors must be taken into account: sociological, cultural, his-
torical, economic, political. Utilization of these analytic categories can
help us discover why a piece was not published, not performed, not
included on major concert series, not recorded. For a few women
composers in-depth research adequate to providing these answers has
been done; but not for the vast majority. This lacuna presents a major
challenge to the field of musicology. On a practical level it means that
music by women is often hard to come by and thus that much more
difficult to assess and incorporate into the teaching canon. On a more
subtle level it means that preconceived notions along the lines of "If
I don't know about it it's probably no good" have a greater chance of
creeping into our subconscious and affecting our decision-making
process, despite the best of intentions to the contrary.
Third, and perhaps thorniest, we have to confront the issue of
what criteria we are imposing when we consider a piece a member of
the canon. If we immediately respond "excellence" we are mostly
correct but not entirely. For example, when teaching music history,
most of us seek a variety of ingredients to bake into our survey recipe,

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

such as diversity of style, of genre, of provenance, of aesthetic sensi-

bility. We might, for instance, be sure to include an example of a Liszt
operatic fantasia for piano (e.g., based on Wagner's Tannhiuser, in the
Plantinga anthology), not because it is a work of the first rank but
because it is a major barometer of a changed aesthetic climate, involv-
ing a host of lead indicators embedded in the composer, the per-
former, the audience, and their interrelationship. We might also want
to include a work that illuminates a particular socio/political phenom-
enon, such as a Smetana tone poem for nationalism. Here again we
would be placing primacy of purpose over primacy of quality.
In thinking about including works by women in the materials for
a given course, we probably will be exchanging their works for more
traditional ones: the number of cards in the canonic deck is usually
finite. This naturally urges judicious selection on our part. I propose
that in choosing women's works for inclusion the main goal is still
excellence.23 First-rank compositions such as the mystical sequences
of Hildegard of Bingen, the virtuosic cantatas of Barbara Strozzi, the
rich harpsichord suites of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and the
splendid chamber music of Rebecca Clarke and Ruth Crawford See-
ger make that task easy.24 But in attempting to include works whose 113
quality does not stand up to, say, a Beethoven or a Bach, but might
well match those of a Dvorak or a Stamitz, we have to reconsider very
seriously the centrality of the criterion of excellence. As we have just
seen, as things already stand, it is operative as first among many
standards in the teaching canon. Subordinating it on occasion to some
other compelling criterion, such as illumination of a telling social
phenomenon, is eminently reasonable when done with intelligence
and an overall sense of balance. It is in this context that works by
women composers not of the stature of a Beethoven or Bach can
make an important contribution to the canon. Pedagogically our pre-
sentation of women's works can run the gamut from the purely sty-
listic to the purely intellectual,25 although my guess is that most of us
would choose something in the middle, the exact mix dependent on
23
As a subjective term, "excellence" carries some problematic aspects: notably,
who decides, from what ideological viewpoint, the qualitative criteria. This issue is of
great concern to feminists and will be explored later in a book-length expansion of this
article.
24 There exist splendid recordings for all these composers. One can find a sug-
gested list in Briscoe's Historical Anthology of Music by Women, in addition to musical
scores of significant works. Unfortunately Strozzi is not included. But two recent col-
lections of Strozzi cantatas, prepared by Ellen Rosand, are available: a facsimile edition
issued by Garland (1986), and a reprint of I Sacri Musicali Affetti (1655) published by Da
Capo (1987).
25 "Intellectual" embraces a wide
variety of approaches, such as sociological, bio-
graphical, feminist, psychoanalytic, economic, political, or some combination.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

the goals of the course and the work's relationship with others of its
era, genre, and function.
For the last decade musicology has been moving inexorably to-
wards a societal framework, a view advocated so eloquently by J. Peter
Burkholder, Gary Tomlinson, and others. Women's activity in music
has been vital and continual but for various reasons submerged and
absent from present-day eyes. Certainly, if we believe that music
viewed in its societal context is a prime goal, then we must retrieve
that surprisingly large, rich body of music composed by women. Not
doing so, if for no other reason, presents a false image of music-
making in the past. It obscures the realities inherent in the long path
from recognition of creative talent to recognition of professional sta-
tus. It reinforces the inaccurate notion that there were no women
composers and also renders it that much more difficult for women to
emerge as creators in the future. Neglect also leaves buried some
wonderful music that we would probably be delighted to incorporate
into our ever-growing repository of music.

III
114
_~114 ~When the foregoing was presented at the Ameri-
can Musicological Society meeting it elicited provocative commentary
from Professor Don Randel, the scheduled respondent. He agreed
with the basic thrust but felt the paper did not go far enough in
suggesting the most fruitful framework for coming to grips with
women creators and their works. In short he called for nothing less
than the establishment of a critical and theoretical framework appro-
priate to doing feminist musicology. For musicology's values, catego-
ries, pioneers, leading practitioners, and most important, its episte-
mology about music itself have been male-defined. In order to carve
out a meaningful framework for assessing women musicians one
should not rely solely on traditional conceptual modes. They are in-
adequate and inappropriate.
Randel's challenge is laudable and has been raised by others, for
example Joseph Kerman and Richard Taruskin.26 It has already been
26
In ContemplatingMusic: Challengesto Musicology(Cambridge, Mass., 1985), p. 17,
Kerman does not make a direct plea for "serious feminism" in musicology, but indi-
rectly acts as its advocate as he laments its absence, along with post-structuralism and
deconstruction, from musicological writing. See also Taruskin's review of The Musical
Woman, volume 2, in Opus IV/2 (February 1988), p. 64. I am indebted to Professor
Deborah Hayes for pointing out Taruskin's piece. An interesting response is made by
feminist musicologist Susan McClary: "It is significant that the voices calling for a
feminist criticism are those of well-established men. Women in musicology tend to read
such appeals not as open encouragement but as taunts, as invitations to professional
suicide" ("Foreword. The Undoing of Opera: Toward a Feminist Criticism of Music,"

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

accepted in other, more established fields of feminist inquiry, such as

literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology. But in this regard I
would suggest that two structural characteristics of our traditionally
conservative discipline pose additional challenges to the attainment of
that desirable goal.
The first factor concerns our graduate-school training. Unlike
other disciplines, which can boast a long and continuous tradition of
immersion in intellectual modes of discourse, musicological training
in the United States has rested on a positivist (Germanic) base that
focused almost exclusively on textual concerns and thereby excluded
such discourse. Important systems such as Marxism, psychoanalysis,
or structuralism were notably absent from musicological scholarship.
Arguably, the most imaginative conceptual theorizing was in aesthet-
ics, which is grounded in philosophy, and in ethnomusicology, rooted
in anthropology. Happily, however, the situation is beginning to
change. Music courses deploying interdisciplinary theoretical ap-
proaches, including semiotics, deconstruction, Marxism, and psycho-
analytic theory, are sprouting up in PhD programs, and their seeds
are fertilizing discourse throughout the profession, in the form of
provocative papers, journal articles, and even books.27 As a result, 115
many of us who were trained before this sweeping tide hit shore in the
last eight years are undergoing a kind of revisionist phase as we re-
conceptualize our model of scholarly methodology; it is vastly differ-
ent from the norms instilled in our graduate training. In this regard
we can learn a great deal from our colleagues in other disciplines,
whose training placed greater emphasis on intellectual discourse and
reasoned argument. It is not merely a question of our becoming fa-
miliar with particular theories. It is rather a retuning of the scholarly
mindset to embrace a style that is inquisitive and open, unafraid to
question basic assumptions, even long-held disciplinary assumptions.
in Catherine Clement, Opera, or the Undoing of Women,trans. Betsy Wing [Minneapolis,
1988], p. ix).
27 One result has been
truly feminist work. Among papers are several delivered
in Baltimore in November 1988, including Linda Austern's on the English Renaissance,
Suzanne Cusick's on Francesca Caccini's opera, and Susan McClary's on early
seventeenth-century opera. Other conferences have included Susan McClary's paper,
"Sexual Politics in Classical Music" (Wisconsin, April 1986), and Ruth Solie's presen-
tation, "Whose Life? The Gendered Self in Schumann's FrauenliebeSongs" (Dartmouth,
May 1988). Many of these papers will be published. Regarding books, several are in the
forthcoming stage, such as the collection of essays edited by Susan Cook and Judy
Tsou. At present, Clement's Opera,or the Undoing of Women,constitutes the first impor-
tant full-length feminist critique. As McClary points out in her Foreword (p. x), it is
interesting that this study was authored by a literary theorist, well grounded in anthro-
pology, and not by a musicologist. Other imaginative interdisciplinary work has been
done, among others, by musicologists Carolyn Abbate, Rose Rosengard Subotnik, and
Gary Tomlinson.

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 THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY

This mindset and style set the stage for a sustained immersion in
broad intellectual life. And, as feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter
has asserted, such broad immersion is a requisite for doing feminist
work:

Feministcriticismdiffers from other contemporaryschools of criti-

cal theory in not deriving its ... principles from a single authority
figure or from a body of sacredtexts.... Linguistics,psychoanalysis,
Marxism,and deconstructionhave all provided feminist criticalthe-
ory with important analytical tools.28

Budding musicologists now being exposed to such exciting con-

ceptual systems in graduate school and in the profession at large will
be much better equipped than previous generations to formulate the
questions and grapple with the issues in embarking on a truly feminist
musicology.
But this better trained young scholar might then encounter the
second disciplinary characteristic that has delayed the inception of
feminist musicology: feminist scholarship is not a bonafide category of
116 job specialization. Indeed, when one is seeking a job in musicology
one usually responds to an advertisement for a given historical era,
e.g., Medieval or nineteenth century. Rare is the call for a feminist
specialization, although one's work might be able to fit into a standard
period or else qualify if the job description is very general, such as
"Specialization in Baroque through twentieth century." But as things
stand, the job slot most suited to a feminist musicologist is probably
one in an interdisciplinary women's studies program rather than in
musicology. Perhaps this limited selection of categories is an example
of what Randel has termed "the inherited male authority" of our field.
In any case, the result is a double standard: we want to encourage
feminist work on the one hand, and on the other we undercut its
legitimacy by not granting it institutional validity. Thus, young schol-
ars embarking on feminist musicology should be cognizant of their
professional options. Their work will be warmly accepted in many
quarters, especially by those doing similarly imaginative work in other
facets of musicology, e.g. social history or reception theory. But the
present job structure, which mirrors the values of musicological cul-
ture, especially in the academy, has some adjustments to make before
harmonizing with the professed desire of many for a feminist musi-
cology.

28
"The Feminist Critical Revolution," in The New Feminist Criticism:Essays on
Women,Literature,and Theory,ed. Showalter (New York, 1985), p. 4.

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 THE MUSICAL CANON

As time passes and we become more familiar with

ideas and methodologies from other disciplines and their potential
for informing our own work and the field as a whole, we can look
forward to an ever narrowing intellectual gap between musicology
and other disciplines. As is already occurring, there will come greater
awareness of possibilities for specific, viable feminist methodologies
for the study of music. For instance, one avenue of promise is the
marriage of psychoanalysis and listener-response theory.29 Mean-
while more music by women will have been unveiled and investigated,
and probably in an expanding array of intellectual frameworks. As a
result we anticipate a significant enrichment of the content and values
of the musical canon by the works of women: a reinstitution of valid-
ity, voice, and authority.

Rice University
29 In his presentation, Don Randel drew attention to the potential in reader/
listener response theory and also quoted from the section "Reading as a Woman" in
Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction(Ithaca, 1982). See also the collection Gender and
Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts,ed. Patrocinio P. Schweickart and Eliza-
beth A. Flynn (Baltimore, 1986). The attractiveness of psychoanalysis as a mode of
analysis for women composers has been demonstrated by Dr. Anna Burton, psycho- 117
analyst, in her thoughtful work on Clara and Robert Schumann. This includes her
presentation at the November 1988 meeting of the AMS Committee on the Status of
Women; her article "Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck: A Creative Partnership,"
Music and LettersLXIX/3 (July 1988), 321-34; her forthcoming essay, "The Childhood
of Clara Schumann: A Psychoanalytic View," in PsychoanalyticStudies of Music and Mu-
sical Creativity,ed. Stuart Feder, Richard L. Karmel, and George H. Pollock (Madison,
Conn.); and her major contribution to Nancy Reich's perceptive biography of Clara
Schumann.

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