Not Only to Soothe Babies

Not Only to Sooth Babies

It seems quite plausible that rhythm, singing and movement were used to soothe babies, to attract prospective mates, to celebrate good hunting forays and to mourn for the dead before recorded history.   Historic documents show that women have created music and performed on musical instruments throughout recorded history.  Before recorded history, rock paintings from more than 10,000 years ago show women dancing, singing and playing musical instruments.  Sophia Drinker, in Music and Women, writes that women painted many of the extant pictures. 

Historic documents show that women created music and performed on musical instruments. Combining rhythm and sound and dance, music was an integral part of religious rites and celebrations of birth, marriage, harvest and death.  Pottery of about 5000 B.C. in Sumer, Egypt and Europe shows figurines of women playing instruments, singing, wailing and weeping.  Women in Egypt were trained musicians and singers, holding responsible positions in the temples and courts.  The Chinese goddess Nukua, who was really the wife of Emperor Fohi, c. 2500 B.C. was especially revered for the creation of a tonal system used by musicians. (p. 69) 

              Sappho, 7^th century B.C., used lyre and flute to accompany her songs.  She developed a stringed instrument called the pectis and used a plectrum, or quill, to strike the strings.  She invented the mixolydian mode of music. She may have been the official conductor of the temple choirs. (p. 108) 

              Early Greek culture used music to instill courage, reverence, passion and other states of mind or “moods,” and women were at the center of creation of music.  “They danced, sang, and played instruments, especially flutes and cymbals and drums.  From childhood to the grave, at home. . . and in formal public ceremonials, early Greek women had opportunity and occasion to use music, and incentive to compose it.” (p. 91) The result was a great wealth of music composed for women and by women.  Phantasia, who traveled from Egypt to Greece before Homer, and her friend Themis are credited with inventing the heroic hexameter meter.

              At the time of Sappho, the Spartan Megolastrata led girl choirs and composed music for them.  Telesilla of Argos was famous for her hymns and political songs.  When Spartans threatened to invade, she armed the women and led them against the enemy.  Corinna of Boetia was Pindar’s teacher.  Besides her prize winning poetry she wrote choruses for women in which she sang of women in native myths and legends.  Praxilla of Sicyon was famous for her table, or drinking songs sung at banquets of the nobility. 

              Against this rich history of women’s musical contributions to their societies, Confucius in China, Manu in India and the Jewish leaders wrote that women were insignificant, unworthy of respect, and should be stripped of power.  Confucius pronounced that it is immoral for a man’s coat to hang next to a woman’s dress on pegs on a wall.  Manu said woman is wicked and must be controlled.  Any man must be worshipped like a god by his wife.  This attitude may have led to the caste system.  Jeremiah called women defiled creatures and Ezekiel announced “No more song or music from women.”  These attitudes made it extremely hard for the growth of creativity in women.

              Still early Christian women and men used dance and song to increase the power of prayer and rites.  Until the 4^th century women were leaders in the development of new music. Church fathers knew the power of pagan women and the beauty of the songs they had composed.  So they wrote songs, hymns, litanies and work songs for women and girls to sing.  Widows were encouraged to sing hymns, pray and read.  Girl choirs were instrumental in gaining converts and by the 4^th century their songs furthered the power and authority of Mary.  It is probable that women also wrote music and played instruments. 

              Gradually the position of women in the Christian church was circumscribed and their authority removed.  Their musical contributions were also stifled.  The church fathers, filled with notions of woman’s defilement through sex, (but not men’s) forbid dancing by women absolutely.  The laments at funerals, associated with women’s pain, hope and rebirth were forbidden for centuries.  Christian girls were forbidden to learn musical instruments because prostitutes developed musical skills.  Men could play instruments, and castrated men were employed to provide the high registers of singing.

              Even in this atmosphere, nuns continued to sing, to compose and to perform.  St. Scholastica of the 5^th century, together with her brother St. Benedict, encouraged singing, and the nuns and monks of their respective establishments sang from 5 to 8 hours daily. 

Other abbesses and nuns, famous for their political acumen, scientific and learned ideas, were acknowledged musicians and composers. Their musical activities and poetry writing were accepted because these women had first achieved fame for their prophesies and had demonstrated religious purity.  Mechthild , cantrix of the Cistercian Convent at Helfta for thirty years, seemed to live to sing.  Forbidden to sing love poems by edicts from Charlemagne, she began writing spiritual love songs – love songs to Christ.  The most famous of these musicians is the 11^th century Abbess Hildegarde of Bingen who wrote the liturgical musical drama, “Play of the Virtues.”  This is just one of 70 compositions she wrote.  Her works have been resurrected in recent years and are recorded by famous groups on Nonesuch and Harmonia Mundi labels, among others.  Abbess Herrad of Hohenburg, (died in 1195) created the artwork “Garden of Delight,” an encyclopedia, poetry and songs.                                                     

   After the Crusades, singing was permitted in church.  Before that time, at the beginning of the 12^th century, male troubadours and female trobaritz composed and sang about courtly love. The most famous of these women, Marie of France, perhaps a stage name for a relative of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, wrote many “Lais” which were translated into Norse, Middle English and High German. (Vicki Leon, Uppity Women of Medieval Times. P. 128)

The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14^th century.  By 1400 women were permitted to sing hymns, carols, love songs and folk songs.  They did some composing.  In the 16^th century Tarquinia  Molza composed music and organized a women’s orchestra at the Este court at Ferrara.  She joined Laura Peperara, Lucrezia Benedidi and other women who performed regularly at home and abroad.  Unfortunately, she fell out of favor and was dismissed by the Duchess Margarite and her music banned. Other popular women composers and performers include Madeleine Casulana, who wrote operas, Laura Bovia, Francesca Caccini, and Clementine de Bourges. (Drinker, p. 221-222)  

Many accomplished women musicians were hired by European courts but few attained the rank of music director.  Only three are known to us today.   Marguerite-Louise Couperin worked professionally for Louis XIII.  Tarquinia Molza filled this position at the Este court and Antonia Bembo composed and performed at the court of Louis XIV.

Professional quality in singing, playing and composing were integral parts of life in convents partly because many educated noble women who could not find suitable marriages entered convents and brought with them their aptitude and taste for music. In the face of gorgeous music being produced, church authorities laid down repressive rules.  In 1686 an edict declared:

Music is most detrimental to the modesty befitting the female sex, as it distracts from more proper actions and occupations; and on account of the dangers to those connected with it . . . no young girl, married woman, or widow. . . shall be permitted to take lessons in singing or any kind of instrument from men teachers. (Drinker, p. 222-223)

And still beautiful singing, playing and composing continued in convents.  In the 18^th century the famous annual walk to Paris began as people went to hear the nuns sing the Tenebrae on Good Friday.  Young women outside convents were encouraged to learn to sing and play competently as these skills would increase chances for a suitable marriage.

              Many nineteenth century women became famous opera and concert singers – too many to list here.  Here are a few who are famous also as composers.  Theresa Carreno, pianist, composed the national anthem of Venezuela, sang and directed operas, and taught in Germany for 30 years.  Clara Schumann, child prodigy, performed piano works she composed as well as those of Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms and Robert Schumann.  Amy Cheney Beach began composing in 1871; her popularity led to Amy Beach Clubs in many towns.  Her Gaelic Symphony was the first written and performed by an American woman.  Her works were performed at the 1893 Chicago Fair.

              Among virtually unknown composers are Effie Crocker who wrote the tune for “Rock-a-bye Baby” in 1877 and Katherine K. Davis who wrote “The Little Drummer Boy” in 1941.  First attributed to a Czechoslovakian priest, Davis had to go to court to prove she had registered it with the American Society of Composers and Publishers in 1941.

Lucy McKim Garrison collected slave songs in 1862, including “Roll, Jordan, Roll” and “Poor Rosy.”  Alice Fletcher, Natalie Burlin and Frances Densmore are a few who collected Indian music.  The first black woman composer was Florence Smith Price; her pupil, Margaret Bonds, set many Langston Hughes poems to music in the 20^th century.

              Solo instrumental performers faced many obstacles.  Acceptance into orchestras was equally difficult.  Elsa Hilger was the first woman, other than a harpist, to be a permanent member of a major orchestra when hired in 1934 by Leopold Stokowski for the Philadelphia Orchestra.  She began as fourth-chair cellist; Eugene Ormandy promoted her to third chair and finally assistant principal cellist.  She retired in 1969, missing only one performance the day her son was born.  Sara Feldman, hired in 1936 as violist in the Baltimore Symphony, faced picketing by males carrying signs “Unfair to Men.”  Doriot Anthony Dwyer, grand-niece of Susan B. Anthony, was hired by Boston Symphony by Charles Munch as head of flutist section in 1952. 

              Even with these successes, many male directors refused women in their orchestras.  In 1946 Jose Iturbi flatly refused to hire women graduates of the Eastman School of Music in the Rochester Symphony, claiming that women “can never be ‘great musicians.’”  The same year Sir Thomas Beecham announced that “Women Ruin Music.”  He continued: “If the ladies are ill-favored the men do not want to play next to them, and if they are well-favored, they can’t.” (Drinker, p. 239)

              Women are also quite invisible as conductors of orchestras.  Nadia Boulanger, who taught composition and is considered the most influential in the 20^th century, in 1939 became the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic.  It was not until December 1975 that Sarah Caldwell became the second woman to conduct this orchestra.  Her accomplishments, including being hired as the first woman to conduct the New York Metropolitan Opera in January 1976 led “Time” magazine to put her on the cover of its November 10, 1975 edition.

              Time and space have permitted listing only a few historic women and no achievers in today’s rich fields of music.  This very brief collection of women in music who made great contributions and succeeded in the face often of censure and disapproval is meant to encourage discovery other musicians who achieved in other modes of music.