Throughout history female composers have been subjected to ludicrous criticisms, had their sex lives scrutinized and the veracity of their authorship questioned. Fanny Mendelssohn, who established one of the most important musical salons of the nineteenth century, spent much of her life seeing her few published compositions credited to her brother. Seven years after writing that she would never become a composer, Clara Schumann, with four children under five and a husband struggling with mental illness, wrote the poised and lyrical Piano Trio in G Minor.
From Andalucia to Berlin, this is a celebration of the great forgotten women who evaded, confronted and ignored the ideologies and practices that sought to exclude them from the art they loved. They composed in times of war and revolution, plague and exile, working in convents and castles, salons and princes’ courts, townhouses and conservatoires, their lives entwined with European history. Long-overdue, Composer paints a complex and inspirational picture of artistic endeavor and achievement which deserves to be part of our cultural heritage.
The featured composers:
Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianna Martines, Fanny Hensel (nee Mendelssohn), Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, Elizabeth Maconchy
