
DMA Composition Dissertation

Introduction
Context: A Need for Musical Historiography
Throughout history there have been many successful women composers. Unfortunately, women have often been left out of the music history narrative, which is taught to music students in conservatories and music colleges throughout the Western world. I desire to help construct a new, more inclusive narrative that incorporates many of these accomplished women. As part of my dissertation, I have worked towards achieving this aim by composing a liturgical organ concerto inspired by the music of select women composers from across history. To maintain a comprehensive focus on advocacy, I chose women who were pioneers or advocates for other women. My dissertation was also an opportunity to write for myself as an organ soloist. This process allowed me to bring together the different facets of my doctoral studies (composition, theory, and organ).
History of Advocacy for Women in Music
The History of Patriarchy in Music
The gender hierarchies within Western classical music reflect the equivalent hierarchies present in Western society as a whole.[1] While the patriarchy is arguably reliant on viewing women musicians as a distinct category, Judith Tick, a prominent feminist musicologist, argues that historians and researchers can use this category as a lens through which to acknowledge women’s accomplishments.[2] Initially, musicologists’ focus on gender as a category was beneficial because the work resulting from this focus uncovered a wealth of music written by women that was previously unknown.[3] Of course, such categorization led, in some instances, to women only being compared to other women rather than being included in the mainstream narrative, which was detrimental.[4]
Early Efforts to Incorporate Women into the Mainstream Musical Narrative
Initially, if women were included in musical dictionaries they were listed as “female musicians” rather than composers.[5] For example, in the 1700s the largest category of women musicians in music lexicography were professional opera singers.[6] Eventually, in the 1800s, musicologists, such as François-Joseph Fétis, deemed there to be enough women composers to have their own category in lexicographical publications; however, music by these women was labeled Damenmusik, a derogatory designation.[7] During the 19th century little progress was made to include more women in the historical musical narrative.[8] George Grove only included 29 female composers in his first Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1879–89).[9]
In the first half of the 20th century, two pioneering generations of female musicologists—including Marie Bobillier, Yvonne Rokseth, and Kathi Meyer—conducted studies of women’s historical musical institutions such as nunneries and female choirs.[10] Musicologist Sophie Drinker expanded this research to look beyond particular institutions, thus pioneering the field of historiography of women in music.[11] Drinker’s efforts would not be fully realized until the end of the 20th century.[12]
Effects of Second Wave Feminism on Historiography Efforts
In the 1970s and during the second wave of feminism, musicologists increased their efforts to develop an alternative historical perspective.[13] Universities established a new field of study: women’s studies.[14] During this time, a much greater number of women were trained professionally as musicologists, which further helped historiographical efforts.[15] By 1980, universities started offering courses focused on women in music.[16] Most researchers focused on data collection and on uncovering lost music by women.[17] The vast amount of music recovered prompted the formation of recording companies (Leonarda) and publishing companies (Furore Verlag) devoted to showcasing only music by women.[18]
By the 1990s, women’s history had developed into multiple categories: repertory, social process, and ideology.[19] Musicologists were beginning to flesh out the history of women in music, and advancements were being made in the lexicography of women composers.[20] For example, the comprehensive New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (1994) contains over 900 entries.[21] Three decades later in 2024, the online women composer database, Donne, Women in Music contains more than 5000 entries and is still expanding. I am even included in this database.
Despite this progress, there is still much work to be done. There is still more music to be discovered, and the process of integrating music by women into textbooks, anthologies, and other educational materials still remains a challenge.[22] The lack of women’s repertoire in anthologies and textbooks often means they are not included in the mainstream historical narrative taught to music students in conservatories and music schools . It is only possible to achieve gender equality in the classical music world when all genders are represented equally in the curriculum. I hope my organ concerto will further this process.
Inspiration and Origin of the Project
I have always been drawn to writing concerti for specific soloists. During my time at The Boston Conservatory, I wrote a marimba concerto in collaboration with a percussionist. Working so closely with a soloist on a large-scale work is a life-changing experience as a composer. During the process, the music has to be tailored directly to the talents and skills of that particular player. After many years of not having the opportunity to write a concerto, I found myself ready to embark on another concerto project.
I attended the Church Music Institute Summer Intensive and Retreat in August 2023. The resident organ faculty member at the program performed a recital in which he assigned different J.S. Bach chorale harmonizations to different parts of the Ordinary of the Mass. I was impressed by this concept, and I knew I could adapt this idea to create something that advocates for women composers. As I did in my Doctor of Musical Arts Theory Treatise, I will investigate the music and lives of selected women composers throughout history and create a new work that will encourage a new generation to learn more about their lives and their music.
Significance and Purpose of the Project
This project has two main aims. First, I hope to make audiences more aware of the accomplishments of the concerto’s featured women composers and their music. I hope my concerto contributes to a historiographical reconstruction of the musicological narrative. Currently, the main composers in the prevailing narrative are males. There were many successful women composers throughout history and, consequently, music history textbooks should reflect that.
Second, there is a lack of organ and orchestra repertoire that can be used in both liturgical and concert settings. I hope that this addition to the canon will be beneficial to both concert and church organists. I aim to combine these sociological and practical aims to create a work that is beneficial to the religious and academic communities as well as to society as a whole.
Scope
The concerto for solo organ and string orchestra is 30 minutes in length, with six movements. Each movement is based on a different text of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei). These movements were each inspired by a different woman composer from a different historical musical period, who was either a pioneer or advocate for other women: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590), Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704), Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731-1765), Clara Schumann (1819-1896), and Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux (1921-1968).
Featured Composers
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Hildegard von Bingen was a pioneer due to her prolific compositional output, and her many other talents, including writing (about theology, philosophy, medicine, and natural history), inventing her own language, art, cataloguing animal species, evangelizing, and practicing medicine.[23]
Background
Hildegard is regarded as a true polymath. She was born into the free nobility of Rheinhessen.[24] When she was eight, her parents committed her to the church, and she joined the newly constructed Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg.[25] Her vows were received on All Saints’ Day, 1112 at the same time as another woman from a noble family, Jutta von Spanheim, by Bishop Otto of Bamberg.[26] They entered a stone cell (tomb) together and only had contact with the outside world through a window.[27] During this time and despite being isolated from the outside world for over three decades, she learned religious practices from Jutta; fundamental theological knowledge from Volmar, a monk-priest from Hirsau; the psalter; and Latin.[28] In 1152, Hildegard established her own convent at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, and rejoined the outside world.[29] By 1165, numbers at the convent had reached over fifty women, and eventually a daughter house was formed at Eibingen, near Rüdesheim, that had room for thirty more nuns.[30] Famous for her miracles and prophecies, Hildegard undertook four preaching missions in Germany from 1160 to 1170, which was unprecedented for a woman during her time.[31] Overall, she aimed to strengthen her convent’s commitment to the Virgin Mary by teaching the Scripture and the Rule of St. Benedict and cultivating the discernment of the right path in monastic life.[32]
Music
Hildegard is the most prolific composer of monophonic chant from the Middle Ages due to her surviving output.[33] The music of Hildegard mainly features recurring elemental melodic patterns, which she uses in various modes.[34] In contemporary times, Hildegard is mostly known for her various settings of single movements of the Ordinary of the Mass. A complete Mass setting was not attributed to a single composer until the Ars Nova period (1310-1370). In addition to her settings of text from the Ordinary of the Mass, she also is known for writing a morality play, Ordo virtutum, in dramatic verse.[35] It is the earliest extant morality play by more than a century and presents the battle for the human soul, Anima, between the Devil and sixteen personified Virtues.[36]
Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590)
Maddalena Casulana was a pioneer in the music publishing world. She made it possible for younger generations of women to publish their music. She is most known for her madrigals.
Background
Maddalena Casulana was an Italian composer, lutenist, and singer. During her lifetime, she was a successful and well-known composer. Her name may refer to her place of birth (Casola or Casole), but she was mainly active in Venice and Vicenza.[37] She is occasionally referred to as Maddalena Mezari, which could be her married name.[38]
Music
Casulana was the first woman to publish a book of her own music and received notable commissions, including the composition of an epithalamium, Nil mage iucundum, in five parts for a royal wedding in Munich.[39] Her first book of madrigals, published in Venice 1568, Primo libro de madrigali a quattro voci, was dedicated to Isabella de’ Medici Orsini, who was a noted patron and musical amateur.[40] In 1570, Casulana published a second book of madrigals, Secondo libro de’ madrigali a quattro voci, which she dedicated to Antonio Londonio, a Milanese official and notable patron of music whose wife, Isabella, was a well-known singer.[41]
Casulana handled harmony and dissonance in an original way.[42] She created a unique musical style through her chromatic alterations and dramatic harmonic juxtapositions along with contrasts in register and passages in falsobordone style.[43] She mainly used contemporary (to her time) lyric verse, illustrated with word-painting devices.[44] Some of her part-writing was unconventional featuring stunning and original musical effects and a personal and distinctive style.[45]
Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704)
Isabella Leonarda was a pioneer due to her prolific compositional output in the realm of sacred music. Her publishing successes made it possible for other women to publish their own music. In contrast to Casulana, Leonarda is exclusively known for her sacred music.
Background
Leonarda was an Italian composer who came from a prominent Novarese family (meaning they were from Novara, a city in Piedmont in northwest Italy).[46] In 1636, she entered an Ursuline convent, Collegio di S. Orsola, and stayed there for the rest of her life.[47] After fifty years at her convent, she was appointed mother superior (1686) and then provincial mother superior (1693).[48]
Music
Leonarda wrote around 200 compositions that represent almost every sacred music genre of the time.[49] Her instrumental works are the earliest sonatas published by a woman.[50] Gasparo Casati (the maestro di cappella of Novara Cathedral) included two of Leonarda’s compositions in his Terzo libro de sacri concenti (1640).[51] By the end of her long life, she published twenty collections of her own compositions, which contained over 200 works.[52] She published mostly motets, many settings of her own texts.[53] She also wrote masses, psalms, and other sacred pieces, many with instrumental accompaniment.[54] She published her last collection, which contained fourteen motets, in 1700.[55]
Elisabetta de Gambarini (1731-1765)
Elisabetta de Gambarini was a pioneer and advocate for women musicians during her lifetime. In addition to being a composer, she was known for being a talented multi-instrumentalist. She was a successful musician despite also combating severe domestic abuse. For modern women, she still serves as a model of how to succeed despite the abuses of a patriarchal society.
Background
Gambarini was an English composer, mezzo-soprano, organist, harpsichordist, pianist, orchestral conductor, and painter from the Classic era.[56] She was born in 1730 to Charles Gambarini and Johanna Stradiotti, who were a prominent and respected couple in London.[57] Her father was an Italian count who had become an art collector and antiquarian dealer in London.[58] His knowledge of art and his extensive art collection meant that he socialized with the most prestigious members of London society in the early eighteenth century.[59] As a result of her father’s status, Gambarini grew up in a wealthy, professional household and had an extensive musical education.[60]
In recent years, scholars have discovered that Gambarini endured severe domestic abuse from her husband, Stephen Chazell, toward the end of her life.[61] Feminist scholars regard Gambarini as one of the first examples of a prominent woman musician who was also a survivor of sexual abuse.[62]
Music
During her lifetime she was arguably equal to her male peers in terms of accomplishment and skill.[63] She was the first British woman to publish a collection of keyboard works.[64] Many of her keyboard works are written in an early Classical style, akin to the music of J.C. Bach. Her music has balanced phrasing and classic alberti piano textures, typical of the time period.
Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896)
Clara Wieck Schumann was an international concert pianist pioneer, a prolific piano pedagogue with a legacy that has lasted to the present day, and a skilled composer. Schumann wrote in her many letters that she enjoyed the art of composition and even declared that the only true way of achieving immortality was through composing.[65]
Background
Schumann was taught piano and music composition from an early age by her father, Friedrich Wieck.[66] Before she married Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck was an active composer and enthusiastically performed her own music. Unfortunately, after marriage, her work often took a secondary position to that of her husband.
Her first solo concert was on November 8, 1830 in the Gewandhaus.[67] Even this first concert program featured her own composed variations on an original theme and one of her own songs alongside overtures, rondos, other variations, a four-hand work, a romance for physharmonica[68] and an aria composed by other contemporaries.[69] She continued to actively include her compositions in her recitals until her husband’s death in 1856.[70]
All concert artists were expected to be improvisers during her lifetime, and Clara was no different.[71] Many of her improvisations, such as Praeludieren and Fantasieren, were preserved due to her daughters’ urging.[72] While these improvisations were published after her death, many of her other compositions were published during her lifetime.[73]
Music
Clara Schumann was an accomplished pianist/composer. Her works include solo piano pieces, piano concerti, a set of choral pieces, a great piano trio, romances for violin and piano, and several Lieder. Her lyrical music has distinct melodies and clear form. Her character pieces for solo piano were especially successful with audiences.[74]
Jeanne Marie-Madeleine Demessieux (1921-1968)
Jeanne Demessieux was a French composer and one of the leading organ virtuosi of the twentieth century.[75] She was one of the only prominent women organists during her time, as the profession was, and still is to an extent, highly patriarchal. She was a pioneer and paved the way for subsequent generations of women organist/composers through her notable accomplishments, including being one of the first female organ professors and performing in venues not previously open to women artists.
Background
From the age of 12, Demessieux played organ in Saint‐Esprit, Paris.[76] Her first solo recital was held in Paris in 1946.[77] She also gave recitals in London in 1947 and Edinburgh in 1948; at the Salzburg Festival in 1949; and debuted in the United States in 1953.[78] She was a talented improviser.[79] She became a professor at the Liège Conservatory in 1952.[80] Notably, she was the first woman invited to play in Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. She also played at the inaugural ceremony of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral in 1967.[81]
Music
Many of Demessieux’s compositions show off her virtuosity on the organ. As a composer, she is mainly known for technically and intellectually demanding music; however, she is also one of the only composers to publish a set of short and technically easy pieces in the French Romantic style (Twelve Chorale Preludes on Gregorian Chant Themes).[82] Overall, she was inspired mainly by the French Romantic organ style of composing but also by the music of J.S. Bach. For example, Demessieux's Twelve Preludes are ordered in a similar way to Bach's Orgelbüchlein, according to the liturgical year. She wrote a composition for organ and orchestra, which served as inspiration during my composing process.
[1] Judith Tick, Margaret Ericson, and Ellen Koskoff. “Women in music.” Grove Music Online, 2001.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ian D. Bent and Marianne Pfau. "Hildegard of Bingen." Grove Music Online, 2001.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Barbara Newman, Voice of the Living Light : Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998): 150.
[34] Ian D. Bent and Marianne Pfau. "Hildegard of Bingen." Grove Music Online, 2001.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Casulana, [Mezari] Maddalena. The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography. Published online 2005.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Thomas W. Bridges, "Casulana [Mezari], Maddalena." Grove Music Online. 2001.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Stewart A. Carter, "Isabella Leonarda." Grove Music Online. 2001.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Jennifer S. Uglow, Frances Hinton, and Maggy Hendry, eds. 2005. “Isabella, Leonarda.” In The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography, 4th ed. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
[49] Stewart A. Carter, "Isabella Leonarda." Grove Music Online. 2001.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Jennifer S. Uglow, Frances Hinton, and Maggy Hendry, eds. 2005. “Isabella, Leonarda.” In The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography, 4th ed. Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
[52] Ibid.
[53] Ibid.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Winton Dean, "Gambarini, Elisabetta de." Grove Music Online. 2001.
[57] Alison DeSimone, “Musical Virtue, Professional Fortune, and Private Trauma in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Feminist Biography of Elisabetta de Gambarini (1730–65).” Journal of Musicological Research 40, 1 (2021): 5–38.
[58] Ibid.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Winton Dean, "Gambarini, Elisabetta de." Grove Music Online. 2001.
[65] James R. Briscoe, Historical Anthology of Music by Women. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987.
[66] Nancy B. Reich, and Natasha Loges. “Schumann [née Wieck], Clara.” Grove Music Online, 2021.
[67] Ibid.
[68] The physharmonica, a keyboard instrument, is a kind of harmonium that was used in Germany in the early 20th century and is fitted with free reeds. Kathleen Schlesinger, (1911). "Physharmonica". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press, p. 548.
[69] Nancy B. Reich, and Natasha Loges. “Schumann [née Wieck], Clara.” Grove Music Online, 2021.
[70] Ibid.
[71] Ibid.
[72] Ibid.
[73] Ibid.
[74] Alexander Stefaniak, “Clara Schumann’s 1840s Compositions and her Midcentury Persona.” In Becoming Clara Schumann: Performance Strategies and Aesthetics in the Culture of the Musical Canon, p. 147–92. Indiana University Press, 2021.
[75] "Demessieux, Jeanne Marie‐Madeleine." In The Oxford Dictionary of Music, edited by Kennedy, Joyce, Michael Kennedy, and Tim Rutherford-Johnson. Oxford University Press, 2012.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Ibid.
[78] Ibid.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Ibid.
[81] "Demessieux, Jeanne Marie‐Madeleine." In The Oxford Dictionary of Music, edited by Kennedy, Joyce, Michael Kennedy, and Tim Rutherford-Johnson. Oxford University Press, 2012.
[82] Karrin Ford, "Jeanne Demessieux," The American Organist 26 (April 1992): 58-64.