Female Composers

When thinking of composers the usual names come up, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Mendelssohn. One has to think a bit harder to get the names of female composers. There are those that have lived in the shadow of their brothers or husbands, Fanny Mendelssohn (sister of Felix Mendelssohn), Clara Schumann (wife of Robert Shcumann). On the more contemporary side one might know Judith Weir being Master of the Queen’s Music. There after it becomes more difficult. This being International Womans day I thought I’d try and add to that list and expand my own knowledge of some of these outstanding women.

Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Rebecca was born in Harrow, England to Joseph and Agnus Clarke. Her father encouraged her in music and she started violin lessons at the age of nine. She enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in 1903 but was withdrawn by her father in 1905 after teacher Percy Hilder Miles proposed to her. She attended the Royal College of Music from 1907-10.

After falling out with her father over his extra-marital affairs, he turned her out of the house and cut off her funds. She then had to leave the Royal College of Music and support herself with her viola playing. She was selected by Sir Henry Wood in 1912 to play in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, becoming one of the first female professional orchestral musicians. She moved to America in 1916. She composed a short lyrical piece for viola and piano called Morpheus under the pseudonym of Anthony Trent which premiered in 1918 in New York City. It was played along with other pieces under her own name. Reviewers praised the piece by Trent but largely ignored the pieces by Clarke.

Clarke didn’t write that much music compared to her male contemporaries, in part due to the way society saw the role of the female composer. Her works are now recognised for their compositional strength. Much of her work is yet to be published, or has only recently been published.

Rebecca Clarke

Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (1858-1944)
As well as being a composer Ethel was a member of the women’s suffrage movement. She was born into a large family in England. Her father,a Major-General in the Royal Artillery, was opposed to her having a career in music. She didn’t let this stop her though and she studied with a private tutor. She then went to study at the Leipzig Conservatory.

Sadly from 1913 onwards she started loosing her hearing and only managed to compose four major works before deafness brought her career to an end. She then became interested in literature and published ten successful, mainly autobiographical works. In recognition to her works she was made a Dame Commander or the order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1922.

Smyth has left an extensive body of works. Her opera The Wreckers was praised by some critics, described as “most important English opera composed during the period between Purcell and Britten.”

In 1910 Smyth gave up music for two years and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, part of the suffrage organisation. She penned The March of the Women in 1911 for them. It became the anthem of the women’s suffrage movement. She served two months in Holloway Prison after taking up the call by Emily Pankhurst to break a window of any politician who opposed votes for women.

Dame Ethel Smyth

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Marie-Juliette Olga Lili Boulanger was born in Paris, a child prodigy. Even at the age of two this was apparent. A family friend, Gabriel Fauré, discovered that she had perfect pitch. Both her parents were musicians and gave her much encouragement. The whole family were steeped in music.

In 1912 she competed for the Prix de Rome but collapsed with illness during her performance. She returned to win the composition prize in 1913 with Faust et Hélène. In doing so she became the first woman to win the prize.

She was greatly affected by the death of her father in 1900. This touched her work which is interwoven by themes of grief and loss.

Her life was troubled by illness. At the age of two she had bronchial pneumonia, which weakened her immune system. This lead to intestinal tuberculosis (Crohn’s disease). Her life was tragically cut short, dying at the age of 24.

Lili Boulanger

Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach was an American composer born in Henniker, New Hampshire. She was another child prodigy. By the age of one she could sing forty songs accurately. By the age of two she could improvise a counter-melody to melodies sung to her by her mother. She taught herself to read by age four and was composing simple waltzes by age five. Her mother encouraged her although Amy could throw tantrums if the music didn’t fit her demands.

Although she trained as a pianist when the family moved to Boston, she was self-taught as a composer. Her first major success was the Mass is E-flat Major. This was the first piece of music composed by a woman that was performed by the Handel and Haydn Society. She also had success with the Gaelic Symphony in 1896. She became the first American woman to compose a public symphony.

In 1915 she wrote Music’s Ten Commandments as Given for Young Composers. This outlined her principles of the self-taught composer. She became composer-in-residence at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York. With her status now of the top female American composer she helped to further the careers of many young musicians.

Amy Beach

Yoko Kanno (1964)
I have to admit that I wanted to put Yoko Kanno in this selection of female composers as it links in with my other interest, animation. Yoko Kanno is a Japanese composer known for her soundtracks to many anime films. She is also known for her work for TV, live-action films, video games and advertisments. She has worked on some of the top anime including Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, The Vision of Escaflowne, Cowboy Beebop and Macross Plus. She also collaberated with Joe Hisaishi on the ending music for Porco Rosso. Being a big fan of Studio Ghibli I wanted to include this track.

As well as music she is interested in writing and photography. She has written journals for Newtype Magazine. She expressed her support for the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami by composing a song called “Kimi de Ite, Buji de Ite”.