Historically, the study of arts and humanities in European society was almost always restricted to upper-class men. We remember Renaissance men like Galileo and da Vinci, thinkers like Locke and Montesquieu, and composers like Beethoven and Mozart, but none are ever women. Only in rare cases did upper-class women receive an education, and even fewer delved deep into and produced literature, artwork, or music; most could barely read and write. If a woman became well-known for her work, there was a 100 percent chance that men would criticize her simply for her gender.
The history of women composers in western classical music is widely regarded to have begun with Hildegard von Bingen. A German Benedictine abbess in the eleventh century, she was a woman so brilliant that some believed her works had been divined straight from God. Due to her gender, her works were only performed by and for other women when she was alive and remained largely unknown for centuries. During the decades she spent at a monastery in the Rhineland, Hildegard managed to be an artist, writer, theologian, and composer, a feat that the people of today would still struggle to accomplish.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, female composers rose somewhat in significance. Fanny Mendelssohn, the older sister of the better-known Felix Mendelssohn, wrote over 450 pieces of music but never had the career her brother did, largely because of her gender. In the prime of her career, she hosted people such as members of Russian royalty and the famous Franz Liszt in her music salons. However, she would also become a homemaker and mother, partially adhering to the social norms of her time.
A dear friend of Fanny Mendelssohn’s was Clara Schumann, whom Fanny met with often shortly before she died. Clara married the famous composer Robert Schumann when she was twenty and remained his closest friend and confidante even as he suffered mental breakdowns and attempted suicide. She was an extraordinary pianist, having achieved international acclaim in her teens and becoming a Royal and Imperial Austrian Chamber Virtuoso, Austria’s highest musical honor. Much like Fanny, society did not favor women as performing artists, and Clara once wrote, "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose – there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?” She stopped composing in her mid-thirties.
Paris-born Cécile Chaminade was yet another significant female composer and pianist of the nineteenth century. She studied with faculty at the Conservatoire de Paris but never formally enrolled, as her father believed it was improper for a young lady to do so. Cécile gained international acclaim in Europe, becoming popular in her native France as well as England, and also toured the United States performing her original compositions. In the U.S., she quickly became an American favorite, and “Chaminade Clubs” sprang up all across the country. Cécile was awarded the French Legion of Honour, the highest order of merit both military and civil, a first for a female composer. However, her career was marred with sexism from her contemporaries and a large amount of criticism she received was motivated solely by her status as a woman. Despite her popularity, after her death, her works largely disappeared into obscurity.
Last but not least, pianist Amy Beach was an American composer from New Hampshire who was unique for two major reasons: first, she was an American woman in a time where most composers were European men, and second, she was the first woman in the world to have her symphony performed by a major orchestra. Amy was largely self-taught in the art of composition and the premiere in 1896 of her symphony by the Boston Symphony Orchestra skyrocketed her to fame across the globe. At eighteen, she married Henry Beach, a surgeon in Boston twenty-four years her senior. Though she expressed that she was happy in her marriage, she also fell victim to the pressures of society on women in her day. She agreed to the limits her husband placed on her, which included a maximum of two public recitals a year, more focus on composition rather than performance, to function more as a patron of the arts than a pianist, never teach piano, and not to study composition with a tutor.
Even today, the world of classical music remains male-dominated; a study of 20 top orchestras in the United States done by Classic FM reveals that on average, a mere 37 percent of their members are women. The New York Times reported that 4.1 percent of the conductors of the world’s major orchestras were women in 2020. Ricky O’Bannon, content director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, surveyed 22 of the largest orchestras in the U.S. during his time with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and subsequently discovered that only 1.8 percent of the total works performed during the 2014-2015 concert season were written by female composers. If the composer was living, that statistic rose to 14.8 percent.
Although still extremely low in modern times, these percentages would have been nearly nonexistent a hundred years ago. We consider people such as Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin when we think of classical composers-- those who have studied an instrument may be familiar with some lesser-known names. However, one thing remains the same: the vast majority of composers you can name off the top of your head are men, even though women played a pivotal role in the world of classical music.
Notable works: