The Role of Women in Music in Nineteenth-Century Dublin Jennifer O‟Connor
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The Role of Women in Music in Nineteenth-Century Dublin Jennifer O‟Connor Thesis Submitted to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music National University of Ireland, Maynooth Maynooth Co. Kildare September 2010 Head of Department: Professor Fiona M. Palmer Supervisor: Professor Barra Boydell CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 Chapter One: Music and Life in Nineteenth-Century Dublin 18 1.1 The Golden Age of Dublin: The Eighteenth Century 18 1.2 The Development of Dublin in the Nineteenth Century 21 1.3 The Developments in Music in the Nineteenth Century 23 1.4 The Development of Education 25 1.5 The Role of Women in Society 26 Chapter Two: The Development of the Female Pedagogue: The Beginning of a New Musical Profession for Women 30 2.1 The Role of the Pianoforte in the Lives of Nineteenth-Century Women 31 2.2 The Growth of the Female Pedagogue in Dublin 33 2.3 Mrs Allen and the Allen Academy 41 2.4 The Royal Irish Academy of Music: New Opportunities for Women 47 2.5 Fanny Robinson 48 2.6 A Comparison of the Careers of Fanny Robinson and Arabella Goddard 52 2.7 Elizabeth Scott-Ffennell 58 2.8 The O‟Hea Sisters 62 2.9 Edith Oldham 70 2.10 The Salaries of Female Staff at the Royal Irish Academy of Music 80 2.12 The Development of Music Exams and Qualifications 83 2.13 The Overall Growth in Female Pedagogy in Dublin 86 ii Chapter Three: Women Composing: A New Outlet for Female Creativity 89 3.1 Female Composers in Europe and Britain 90 3.2 The Role of the Female Composer in Dublin 92 3.3 The Compositions of Fanny Robinson 95 3.4 Lady Dufferin and Fanny Robinson: Class Distinctions between Composers 108 3.5 The Compositions of Elena Norton (Ellen O‟Hea) 110 3.6 The Compositions of Annie Patterson 116 3.7 Annie Patterson, Charlotte Milligan Fox and Alicia Adelaide Needham: Promoting Irish Music through Composition 121 3.8 A Comparison of the Work of Ethel Smyth and Annie Patterson 124 3.9 Annie Patterson on the Subject of Composition 126 3.10 The Contribution Made by Female Composers to Dublin‟s Musical History 127 Chapter Four: Women Writing on Music 130 4.1 Annie Patterson‟s Articles on Music for the Weekly Irish Times 130 4.2 Annie Patterson‟s Publications in the Twentieth Century 154 4.3 Annie Patterson and Marion Scott: Professional Comparisons 164 4.4 A Comparison of the Work of Annie Patterson and W.H. Grattan Flood 166 4.5 A Comparison of the Work of Annie Curwen with Annie Patterson 168 Chapter Five: Women’s Promotion of Music 196 5.1 The Incorporated Society of Musicians in Dublin 197 5.2 Margaret O‟Hea‟s Lecture on the „Responsibilities of a Music Teacher‟ 200 5.3 The Involvement of Women in the Founding and Organising of Feis Ceoil 206 iii 5.4 Annie Patterson‟s Promotion of Feis Ceoil 208 5.5 The First Feis Ceoil Competition: Dublin 1897 214 5.6 A Comparison of the Work of Charlotte Milligan Fox and Annie Patterson in the Promotion of Irish Music 218 5.7 A Comparison of the work of Annie Patterson and Mary Wakefield 219 5.8 Edith Oldham and the Feis Ceoil 221 5.9 The Importance of the Feis Ceoil to Music in Ireland 227 Chapter Six: The Role of Men in the Lives and Careers of Musical Women 231 6.1 Mrs Allen and the Influences of her Father, Brother and Husband 232 6.2 Fanny and Joseph Robinson: Their Professional Relationship and Their Marriage 234 6.3 Ellen O‟Hea and her Mentor Sir Robert Prescott Stewart 239 6.4 Annie Curwen and her Marriage to John Spencer Curwen 240 6.5 Elizabeth Scott-Ffennell: Singer, Teacher and Mother 242 6.6 Margaret O‟Hea and her Family 244 6.7 Edith Oldham and the Grove Problem 245 6.8 Edith Oldham and her Marriage to Richard Irvine Best 248 6.9 Annie Patterson and her Role as the Head of her Household 249 Conclusion 253 iv Appendices Appendix 1: Chronological List of the Female Musicians Included in the Thesis. 263 Appendix 2: Le Chant Du Moulin - Fanny Robinson 264 Appendix 3: Gather ye Rosebuds – Elena Norton 270 Appendix 4: Six Gaelic Songs – Annie Patterson 274 Appendix 5: Annie Patterson‟s Articles and Books 308 Appendix 6: Images of Margaret O‟Hea, Elizabeth Scott-Ffennell and Edith Oldham 311 Appendix 7: Photographs of the Original Grove Letters 312 Appendix 8: A Handwritten Note from Annie Patterson 313 Appendix 9: Pamphlet on Annie Patterson 314 Bibliography 318 Abstract 330 v Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the many people who have helped in my research and preparation of this thesis. Firstly, thank you to my supervisor Professor Barra Boydell, for his continued patience, encouragement and enthusiasm for my work. To my first-year PhD supervisor, Dr Lorraine Byrne-Bodley, for her advice and encouragement. Thank you to Professor Fiona Palmer for her kindness throughout my research. Gratitude is also owed to Marie Breen for all her help. To the many librarians who have helped and facilitated my research - the staff in John Paul II Library and the Russell Library, NUI Maynooth, Philip Shields and Laoise Doherty in the Royal Irish Academy of Music Library and Peter Horton in the Royal College of Music Library. My sincere gratitude to Celia Clarke for her detailed transcriptions of the Grove letters. Thank you also to Catherine Ferguson for sharing her knowledge of Edith Oldham‟s family with me. Thank you to Adèle, Catherine and Lisa for their friendship and advice along the way and to Claire, Grainne and Saragh for all their encouragement. Many thanks to the Madsens for all their kindness. Thank you to my family, Dad, Louise, Jason and particularly my mum, Vera for her continued belief in me. Finally, my thanks to Declan for his constant support, encouragement, enthusiasm and patience. This thesis is dedicated to him with gratitude and love. vi Abbreviations Institutions NUIM National University of Ireland, Maynooth NLI National Library of Ireland RCM Royal College of Music, London RIAM Royal Irish Academy of Music RL Russell Library, National University of Ireland, Maynooth RUI Royal University of Ireland Newspapers & Journals EP Evening Packet FJ Freeman‟s Journal IT Irish Times MT Musical Times WIT Weekly Irish Times Books IMS Irish Musical Studies NG2001 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn., Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell, eds., (London: Macmillan, 2001) Electronic Sources GMO Grove Music Online OMO Oxford Music Online ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography vii Introduction Over the course of the nineteenth century women in Dublin managed to carve out a successful position for themselves in many areas of music making. They became active participants in the musical culture of the city through teaching, composing, writing and the promotion of music, so that by the beginning of the twentieth century, they were very much a driving force in musical life in Dublin. Despite the fact that throughout Europe at that time women musicians continually faced assumptions based on gender, in Ireland female musicians were given more opportunity and encouragement to develop their musical talents in all areas. While gender biases were still very much in evidence, women were nonetheless accepted into musical society by their male peers. Unfortunately, their efforts and relentless dedication to music were quickly forgotten as the twentieth century progressed. Modern research into the musical life of nineteenth-century Dublin has centred on the involvement of men – male musicians and composers – and their dedication to music. Despite the growth of feminist musicology and feminist research in other disciplines, particularly towards the end of the twentieth century, women in music in Dublin have remained unrecognised and unappreciated. A continuing interest in researching female composers and musicians since the 1980s has meant that women have begun to be recognised in the music histories of Europe, and considered as part of the musical canon. Examples of this include the research into the lives and work of nineteenth century musicians such as Clara 1 Schumann and Fanny Hensel.1 Several influential texts led the way in feminist musicology in the final decade of the twentieth century, notably Susan McClary‟s Feminine Endings (1991), Karin Pendle‟s Women and Music (1991), Marcia Citron‟s Gender and the Musical Canon (1993) and Ruth Solie‟s Musicology and Difference (1993).2 Because of these texts and the many others that followed, music history textbooks and anthologies began to reflect the growing interest in women‟s involvement in music, with more attention given to them.3 In short, the contribution of women to the history of music began to be considered in all its forms and in many cases their involvement led to a re-evaluation of their male peers and musical activity as a whole. The developments in research in the 1970s and 1980s, which began to uncover the histories and details of the lives of women in music, meant that feminist musicology, in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, could begin to analyse the contributions of women and their compositions under the tenets of feminist theory which musical scholarship was beginning to embrace.4 However, due to the general lack of interest in Irish music as a topic of musicological research before the final decades of the twentieth century, the earlier stages of feminist research or of research in „women‟s studies‟ has not yet been undertaken in Irish musicology.