Page 236 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
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234 FEMALE COMPOSERS
omen were writing
IN CONTEXT opera from the form’s
W first days. The earliest
FOCUS known opera by a woman, La
Female composers
Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola
BEFORE d’Alcina (The Liberation of Ruggiero I feel awfully full of
1644 The Venetian composer from the Island of Alcina), by power—deadly sure of
and singer Barbara Strozzi Francesca Caccini, was first what I am doing—I love
publishes her first book of performed in Caccini’s native city to see how I am
madrigals (Il primo libro of Florence in 1625. For Ethel getting to orchestrate
di madrigali). Smyth, however, writing a three- better and better.
act “grand opera”—serious in Ethel Smyth
1850 In France, the premiere theme, with no spoken dialogue— Letter to librettist Henry Brewster
success of Louise Farrenc's at the turn of the 20th century
Nonet for wind and strings was an ambitious undertaking,
allows her to negotiate equal both because she was female and
pay as professor of piano at the also because she was English,
Paris Conservatoire. British opera having been almost
extinct since Henry Purcell.
AFTER to spread their wings. Cécile
1913 French composer Lili Life beyond the piano Chaminade (1857–1944) and
Boulanger is the first woman For much of the 19th century, Augusta Holmès (1847–1903), both
to receive the Prix de Rome for female composers were associated French and near contemporaries
her cantata Faust et Hélène. with piano and chamber music of Smyth, wrote major orchestral
suited to the domestic sphere. works, as did Amy Beach (1867–
2000 Finnish composer Kaija Composers such as Louise 1944), who was the first American
Saariaho premieres her five-act Reichardt (1779–1826), Clara woman to write a symphony—the
opera L’Amour de loin (Love Schumann (1819–1896), and Fanny Gaelic Symphony (1896).
From Afar), based on the Mendelssohn (1805–1847) were Some women also wrote opera.
12th-century troubadour Jaufré known for “art songs,” or Lieder Thirty years older than Smyth,
Rudel, at the Salzburg Festival. (poems set to music for voice and the French aristocrat Marie de
piano). Toward the end of the Grandval (1828–1907) was a prolific
century, female composers began composer whose works included
a symphony (now lost), an oratorio
(Stabat Mater), and seven operas,
the last of which, Mazeppa, based
on a poem by Byron, was staged
with some success in Bordeaux in
1892. Three years later, Augusta
Holmès’s third and final opera,
La Montagne noire, was produced
at the Paris Opéra. Smyth was in
the French capital at the time and
saw the work. In common with
many others, she was disappointed
The audience prepare to leave after
watching an opera at the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, London, in
1910—the year The Wreckers had its
first performance at the venue.
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