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Musicology and Feminism in the 1990S Author(S): Susan Mcclary Source: Feminist Studies, Vol Reshaping a Discipline: Musicology and Feminism in the 1990s Author(s): Susan McClary Source: Feminist Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2, Women's Bodies and the State (Summer, 1993), pp. 399-423 Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3178376 . Accessed: 26/03/2013 12:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Feminist Studies, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Feminist Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 164.41.4.26 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:58:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RESHAPING A DISCIPLINE: MUSICOLOGY AND FEMINISM IN THE 1990s SUSANMCCLARY Feministscholarship is not new to musicology.Research on women in music began to appearin the 1970s and has increasedsteadily ever since. Until about three yearsago, however,such researchcirculated primarily within a separatesphere-tolerated, but largelyignored by the discipline's mainstreamand little known outside musicology.But recent feminist work concerningmusic has left its ghetto and broadenedits scope to in- clude reexaminationsof the canon, standardmethodologies, and much else. As might have been predicted,the introductionof such projects into a disciplinethat haslong resistedcritical agendas of any sort has pro- voked widespread,often bitterdebates. And althoughthe smoke has not yet cleared,enough has takenplace to warrantsome sort of report. Much of what has transpiredin feministmusicology during the last decade is ratherless controversialthan the issuesraised by feministmusic criticism. Thus, before proceedinginto the currentflap, I will review some of the unambiguoustriumphs in recent scholarshipconcerning women and music. RESEARCH ON WOMEN IN MUSIC HISTORY Prior to 1970 very little was known-or, at least, remembered-about women in music history.Women had vanished;virtually no tracesre- mained on concert programs,on libraryshelves, or in the textbooksthat musicians(more than practitionersin most other fields)absorb as gospel. I rememberbeing told in graduateschool at Harvardthat if there had been women composers,we most assuredlywould havebeen told about them; unfortunately.... The searchundertaken by feministmusicologists in the 1970s turned up far more than anyone could have anticipated,and Eli7abethWood's 1980 review essayin Sigtts1explains well the significanceof theirfindings. FeministStudies 19, no. 2 (Summer1993) ? 1993 by FeministStudies, Inc. 399 This content downloaded from 164.41.4.26 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:58:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 400 SusanMcClary But not even Wood'soptimistic appraisal prepared us for the explosionof informationthat has occurredduring the past decade.Much of the new work has focused on rediscoveringthe women who participatedin the Western art tradition.To be sure, a few exceptionalwomen had been mentioned in the textbooks(as in art history,almost always because they were related to famous malecomposers). But serious, carefullydocu- mented studiesof these women now have appeared,along with editions of their music and even some recordings.Clara Wieck Schumannand FannyMendelssohn Hensel, for example,are now more easilyappreciat- ed as artistsin their own right-ratherthan merelyas wives, daughters,or sisters.2More unexpectedhas been the unearthingof some extraordinary women of the more distantpast, includingmost remarkablyHildegard von Bingen3 of the twelfth century and BarbaraStrozzi4 of the seven- teenth century.Strozzi's music is of the highestcaliber, comparing admi- rablywith that of her better-knowncontemporaries, and Hildegardquite simplyhas no peersin medievalmonophonic composition. It was not only women of the distantpast, however,who had fallen out of sight. The last centuryhas seen an increasein the numberof fe- male composers:Amy Beach, Cecile Chaminade,Ethel Smyth, Mary CarrMoore, FlorencePrice, andRuth CrawfordSeeger were only a few of those who persistedin what was still an inhospitablecultural climate and who attractedconsiderable recognition during their own lifetimes. Yet they were promptlyforgotten again;not even later generationsof feministshad heardof most of them. The life and works of these artists- and many others-arenow being broughtto light in full-lengthstudies.5 The relativeabsence of women from symphonicand operarepertories has often been cited as evidence of their inabilityto achieve"greatness." But as we havelearned more aboutthe implicitor explicitgendering of the music world, we have come to understandwhy women do not show up frequentlyin such repertorylists. For women in musicnot only have had to overcomethe obstaclesfaced by virtuallyany artist,but they also have had to contend with performinginstitutions that regardit as risky to program large-scale works with women's names attached. A few women perseveredand managed to get major works performed and even reviewed.But most adoptedthe strategyof writing music that was guaranteedperformers and a clientele;and this often meant composing works that could be presentedby the composersthemselves or by an ex- tensivenetwork of femalemusicians who purchasedsuch music for their own purposes (which were usuallydismissed as trivial).Thus, the bulk of music by women involved solo voice, piano, or small chamberen- This content downloaded from 164.41.4.26 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:58:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Susan McClary 401 sembles-genresthat do not have the sameprestige value as the orchestral and operaticrepertories from which they were usuallybarred. As in other disciplines,the more we have graspedsuch issues, the more we have realizedthe need to reassessthe canon, to explorethe his- toricalprocesses that had resultedin its formation.Most of us used to ac- cept the idea that Mozart, Wagner,or the "3 B's" (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms) had alwaysbeen reveredfor self-evident reasons;but studies from other fields and recent researchon women composershave moti- vated us to scrutinizethe historicityof that tradition,with some rather surprisingresults. Marcia Citron initially addressedthese questions in 1990 in the firstpiece of feministcriticism in a majormusicology jour- nal, and her forthcomingbook on the musicalcanon and women ex- ploresthe issuesin greaterdepth.6 WRITING THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN MUSIC The first contributions in feminist musicology dealt with individual women or with specific historic contexts, and anyone who has taught courses on women and music knows how it feels to hop among those isolatedislands of informationseparated by gulfs of ignorance.But a se- ries of books from the 1980s has begun piecing togethermore continu- ous accounts of women in music. Unlike the more traditionalsurveys that trace a successionof "masters,"these new accountstend to pay at- tention to many kinds of activitiesbesides formal composition, and they also observe far more closely the social conditionswithin which musi- cians have operated.For one of the chief tenets to fall by the wayside with feministhistoriography is the notion that the individualartist oper- ates autonomouslywith respectto context. The first of these books was not an attemptat narrativehistory, but rather a collection of documents, Carol Neuls-Bates's1982 Womenin Music:An Anthologyof SourceReadingsfrom the Middle Ages to the Present.7 In her collection, Neuls-Batesincludes not only excerptsfrom lettersor statementsby women but also polemicaldebates (e.g., on the questionof whether women are capableof composing "great"music) and sources concerning women'sparticipation in variousmusical institutions as per- formers, teachers,and patrons.Despite its modest size, Womenin Music containsa goldmineof materials.Moreover, Neuls-Bates's choices and ar- rangementsof documentsencourage the readerto observethe contested natureof women'sparticipation in Westernmusic throughout its history. Another milestoneappeared in 1986: a chronologicallyarranged series This content downloaded from 164.41.4.26 on Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:58:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 402 SusanMcClary of essaysedited by Jane Bowers andJudith Tick, WomenMaking Music: The WesternArt Tradition,1150-1950.8 These essaysexamine the partici- pation of women in music at variousmoments; about one-third of them concentrateon a single composer,and the restfocus on contexts (clois- ters, women'sorchestras) or time periods.Because of the wealthof infor- mation it offers, this collection quicklyproved indispensable. It also es- tablisheda high standardof scholarshipfor furtherwork in the areaof women's music history,for each essayis groundedcarefully in historical sources. If the history of women in music is worth researching,it is worth takingas seriouslyas any other branchof musicology,and Bowers and Tick made that point very well. With WomenMaking Music, they won the discipline'srespect. Although the scholarlystudy of women in music flourished,the more practicalenterprises-pedagogy and performance-facedother difficulties. A greatdeal of this work hasbeen impededby the unavailabilityof scores by women, for until very recently,even
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