Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music by Anna Beer

Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music Reviews

• 
  Paul

  This book accompanied a Classic FM series a few years ago and focuses on eight women composers who you may not have heard of. I must admit that I had only heard of four of them.
  Francesca Caccini 1587-1641; Barbara Strozzi 1619-1677; Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre 1665-1729; Marianna Martinez[s] 1744-1812; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel 1805-1847; Clara Wieck Schumann 1819-1896; Lili Boulanger 1893-1918; Elizabeth Maconchy 1907-1994.
  Beer gives a potted biography of each one, looking at their life and work, the barriers they faced, which were many and predictable. It is worth noting that some of the women in the early modern period had more freedom than those from later periods. At the end of the book Beer provides a suggested playlist and where recordings might be found and a few suggested websites.
  It’s written with passion and enthusiasm. There are a couple of supportive husbands, an unsupportive husband (Robert Schumann) and a rather paranoid brother (Felix Mendelssohn). There are also Medici patrons and unsupportive musical establishments: plenty of struggles against the odds.
  I know the title comes from Shakespeare (The Tempest I think), but sweet airs doesn’t sound right. All the composers are white European, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. There’s plenty of scope for follow up volumes as there are plenty of gaps (no medieval composers). Despite the gaps this was well researched and a good introduction to composers who should be better known.
  
• 
  Jane

  A most valuable addition to musical biography and analysis; I see this becoming a standard in studies of women composers. The author has chosen 8 outstanding examples from Renaissance Italy [Caccini and Strozzi]; to the France of the Sun King [Jacquet de la Guerre], to the Austro/German tradition [Martines, Hensel née Mendelssohn, Schumann née Wieck] to the 20th century [Boulanger and Maconchy] and written in detail but accessibly. The author also surrounded these women with a sense of their times and culture. The asides such as the bit on high-heeled shoes in the Strozzi section or on Maconchy's one-act opera, the "The Sofa", were delightful. Boulanger's chapter impressed me the most--such a talented lady, who died tragically young and who composed such luminescent music. The Endnote was fascinating, giving us a glimpse into what made these women special: someone who recognized their genius [no other word for it]; someone who guided and taught them music skills, as performer or as composer; friends or family that supported them; a public or private platform for their gift to shine forth.
  
  I appreciated all the supplementary material, but WHY did the book lack any index? To me as a former librarian, a good index is mandatory for any nonfiction work. WHY are there no discography suggestions for the woman composers mentioned in the introduction? I see these women are mentioned with only a paragraph or two in the Introduction--which is fine. Discography entries for them could be set apart with some kind of marking--asterisk?--before them. I would especially like suggestions about Nun Kassia, a 9th century Byzantine monastic, for whom we have the earliest surviving written music, and the 20th century Rebecca Clarke. Her prize-winning violin sonata was thought to be entered by a man. I hope these black-and-white portraits will be color plates in the published edition. Maconchy herself tells us whenever you hear a piece of music, you have no way of knowing if the composer is male or female--Clarke's contest entry being an example.
  
  Highly recommended. Thanks to LibraryThing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
• 
  José

  Un libro necesario.
• 
  Emma Griffiths

  I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway and I was unsure what to expect, As it's not something I would usually pick up.
  
  I loved the way that Anna Beer explored the lives of 8 different women composers and performers of Classical music - All of which I had never even heard of! Even whilst I was studying GCSE Music, I was not taught of these extraordinary women - As I studied their names in the contents list, I realised that I was only taught of men composers. This is something that I think they should change in the National Curriculum! I thought it was great how the author included a "Further Listening" section at the end of the book, allowing the reader to hear for themselves how wonderfully talented these women are.
  
  As someone who plays Piano myself, I found the stories of these women extremely inspiring, And it's made me want to explore my talent further.
• 
  Kate

  Anna Beer's well-researched book offers a comprehensive look at European female composers between the 16th and 20th centuries. The book examines Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianna Martines, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Elizabeth (Betty) Maconchy. The book considers not only these women's sizable contributions to music but also the social, historical and cultural contexts in which they performed and produced music. I had never read a book like this, and appreciated the opportunity to discuss it with a group of enthusiastic and intelligent women. This had been on my shelves for awhile, and I'm glad I gor around to it!
• 
  Anita

  I really enjoyed this compilation of biographies on female composers. Beer wrote it in such a way that I also learned about the evolution of music throughout the years and across continents. I didn't know any of these women, I'm not by any means a musical person, and I still enjoyed it immensely. I read it with a group (Read Women) and we had a great time discussing the composers, the book, and their music. Listening to some of their pieces as I went along added so much joy to my reading of this book. I highly recommend.
• 
  Linda Robinson

  Brava! Eight women composers. Francesca Caccini 1587-1741; Barbara Strozzi 1619-1677; Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre 1665-1729; Marianna Martinez[s] 1744-1812; Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel 1805-1847; Clara Wieck Schumann 1819-1896; Lili Boulanger 1893-1918; Elizabeth Maconchy 1907-1994.
  
  "Ambitious fathers and talented mothers; prodigy brothers and trailblazing sisters; courts, cities or nations in need of a soundtrack, even if, and sometimes because it is composed by a woman..."
  
  Beer wrote a scholarly historical account of these composers in the setting of their lives, without being pedantic, preachy, creepy or judgmental. The time each woman composed in set the stage for how her art would be received. While each as a musician could perform (though not in public, please) composition was a different discipline. Talking with a friend yesterday I mentioned a couple of contemporaries to further dress the context. "Yes, but Mozart was a prodigy," the man said. OK. So were these women. If you're performing at court at 13 years old, I don't care if you're male, female, reptile or alien, that's prodigal realm.
  
  Fair warning: you may get mad. The author was kind enough to mellow the circumstances so you can get over it fairly quickly. Keep in mind that the composers did what they needed to do to 1) create art 2) write music, and 3) live in the time and place.
  
  Beer is an excellent approachable writer, so take your time with this book. Find videos of the music being performed as you start a new composer chapter. Be your own set designer! Best of all the best, she has A Highly Personal Playlist at the back, in front of a glossary, so a reader may listen further, and needn't be intimidated by musical wordage. Superb. My tiny book designer whinge - the author is blameless - Zapfino font? And obscuring the beautiful portrait of Guerre. tsk.
• 
  Faith Justice

  I received this book from the publisher through an Early Reading program. I have a number of these books about forgotten/unknown female pioneers in a variety of professions. Most have a light-hearted chatty tone with brief biographical sketches. This book was different. Beer is a serious scholar who devoted over 300 pages to just eight women composers from 17C Florence through 20C Britain. She explores their careers in relation to their families, the political situation, role of women, and musical developments of the time. It's a fascinating journey through musical history and women's role in it. Unfortunately, I'm not a musician so I skimmed most of the musical theory discussion. For musically knowledgeable people, add another star. In spite of my ignorance, I enjoyed the stories of these remarkable women.
• 
  Sara J.

  Esto no es solo un libro, es justicia.
• 
  C

  Lo más bonito y sincero que puedo decir de este libro es que me ha hecho sentir las victorias y las derrotas de todas estas compositoras como mías y de todas las mujeres.
  
  «A decir verdad, no se nace genio: se llega a serlo, y la condición femenina ha hecho imposible hasta ahora este devenir.
  Los antifeministas deducen del examen de la historia dos argumentos contradictorios: 1.º las mujeres nunca han creado nada importante; 2.º la situación de la mujer nunca ha impedido el desarrollo de las grandes personalidades femeninas. En las dos afirmaciones hay mala fe; los éxitos de algunas privilegiadas no compensan ni excusan la mengua sistemática del nivel colectivo; y que estos éxitos sean escasos y limitados prueba precisamente que las circunstancias les son desfavorables». Simone de Beauvoir, El Segundo Sexo.
  
  La principal razón por la que ninguna mujer ha trascendido a la historia de la música clásica como compositora es la opresión a la que se nos ha sometido históricamente. Sin las condiciones adecuadas, nadie llega a lo más alto. Sin embargo, como demuestra este libro, hubo compositoras de oficio, mujeres que se ganaron la vida escribiendo música a pesar de las circunstancias. Y algunas de ellas estuvieron muy cerca de la grandeza de los compositores más famosos de la historia (como, indiscutiblemente, Lili Boulanger). Evidentemente hubo más compositores que compositoras, pero no es casualidad que ninguna mujer se enseñe en los programas de los conservatorios y que apenas se representen sus obras. Hubo mujeres con muchos más logros que sus contemporáneos varones, que innovaron más, supieron adaptarse mejor y hasta crearon géneros musicales que se les atribuyen a otros compositores. No se las excluye por la calidad o la originalidad de su música sino por su sexo. Eso tiene que cambiar.
  
  Mi conclusión es que hay que poner en valor las contribuciones de las mujeres a las artes y las ciencias, hay que dejar de silenciarlas y ocultarlas. A pesar de las dificultades añadidas que tenían que enfrentar por su sexo para abordar cualquier disciplina reservada a los varones, hubo mujeres que se abrieron paso en ellas y realizaron importantes aportaciones. Ya es hora de hacerlas visibles y dejar de concederles el mérito a varones por descubrimientos que no son suyos (en el caso de la ciencia) o de minusvalorar la creatividad de las mujeres, sus capacidades y sus conocimientos.
  
  En cuanto al libro (¡perdón!), la autora ha llevado a cabo una excelente labor de investigación para escribirlo. Además presenta a las compositoras de una forma muy personal y cercana que hace la lectura muy llevadera (a pesar de que el lenguaje en mi opinión no sea un punto fuerte del libro, al menos en la traducción que yo he leído). También se nota que se ha empapado de todas estas historias, de las ciudades donde tuvieron lugar y de sus personajes para transmitirlas con el rigor que merecen, y las ha enfocado desde una perspectiva que considero adecuada.
  
  PD: He descubierto que Anna Beer escribió un blog mientras redactaba este libro, podéis ojearlo aquí si os interesa:
  https://shadowofthecourtesan.wordpres...
  Y por si queréis escuchar música de mujeres os dejo algo intenso para empezar (no es barroco, no podéis reprocharme nada):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OERJ...
  
• 
  Grace MacLaine

  In A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf recalls how men once opined that the idea of a woman writing put them in mind of a dog walking on its hind legs: "it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." But while Woolf argues that this opinion has fallen out of fashion when it comes to female writers as people like the Bronte sisters have won wide acclaim, she is able to find a music critic who uses this very quote to disparage the female composer Germaine Tailleferre. And that quote is from 1928, the very year she wrote this essay. She concludes that female composers have a very difficult path, far more difficult than the rocky roads that female writers once faced.
  
  And when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense. A female composer needs everything that a female writer needs. Time, money, a room of one's own, and probably at least basic literacy. But she also needs highly specialized education, and she needs to convince many, many, people, likely men, to perform her work.
  
  Anna Beer's Sounds and Sweet Airs explores how eight women were able to create extraordinary music in spite of those barriers. And they didn't just face those obvious obstacles. Female composers were sexualized, having your work performed in public was regarded as obscene. And after female composers die, there are still more barriers that keep them from being better known today. And even if you do manage to compose music, it will be undervalued and it is much less likely to have been written down. And it is less likely to be recorded today, which means that it is impossible to listen to it today unless you can somehow attend a live performance featuring their work. And the types of music that these women had the resources the produce (songs, sonatas, and the like) are undervalued today compared to more expensive genres of classical music like symphonies, operas, and concertos, which has harmed many of these women's contemporary reputations.
  
  It is unsurprising that the majority of these women were the children, sisters, or wives of other musicians and composers. But while those connections granted them access to education and opportunities, the very men that gave them those opportunities limited their careers. Seeing how these eight very different women managed to negotiate these difficult realities is riveting and fascinating. I was very invested in all these women's stories. Barbara Strozzi was a likely courtesan who knew that her music would not be appreciated in her lifetime, and responded by publishing all of it as a time when all the big-name composers balked at publishing their work for fear that they would reveal their secrets. Fanny Mendelson had a magnificent career in the privacy of her home while her equally talented brother Felix traveled the world and gained widespread recognition. Clara Schumann managed to compose so much wonderful music while taking care of her volatile husband and supporting her family with a frighteningly busy concert and touring schedule. Lili Boulanger achieved unprecedented success in spite of (and even because of) her disability and the even more debilitating treatments for her disability.
  
  I loved them all. I loved reading about them and discovering their music. And fun fact: this book is the source of my Goodreads profile picture, which is a painting of the Italian Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi.
• 
  Jayne

  Anna Beer writes compellingly of these eight composers, how they struggled and dealt with the sexism they encountered, and how they have been received and remembered. I really appreciated how she presented the information available and also provided her own interpretations and theories. This book should absolutely be required reading for every music major. I will surely be reading this again.
• 
  Lauren

  Really needs to be taught in music classes.
• 
  Camille

  Disclaimer: I received this book for free through a First Reads giveaway.
  
  I found the concept of this book interesting, it allowed to discover new composer I'd never heard about. The structure, each chapter focusing on a different person, is quite accessible as you can just put the book down after a chapter and get back to it.
  
  I received an uncorrected proof copy so will not comment on the writing itself as I am sure it was edited. I can say the language is accessible to a person who doesn't know too much about the world of music. I found there was quite a bit of repetition at times, but here again, it may well have been edited.
  I was also not too keen on the author telling you personal things, such as explaining she is writing for Paris or listening to such and such piece of music while writing, in a non-fiction book.
  
  I found chapters 1, 3, 5 and 6 to be very interesting and enjoyed them a lot. The last two chapters I wasn't overwhelmed with, but that is because I like pre-20th century classical music and these chapters are about 20th century composers.
  
  Chapters 2 and 4 were clearly lacking in my opinion. It seems to be that there wasn't enough knowledge about the life and work of Barbara Strozzi and Marianna Martines, so the author keeps going on about other things and repeats herself quite a lot to reach the required number of pages.
  
  All in all, I would say it is an interesting introduction to music or feminist studies, but I don't think I will be keeping my copy.
• 
  Linda

  Sounds and Sweet Airs is an excellent book for challenging the traditional, male-centric classical canon, and I expect that chapters will be assigned by music history teachers for a long time to come. The book has reflective essays at the front and back, but most of the book is biographies: each chapter relates the life and works of a woman composer, giving them the same slightly hagiographic treatment long given to music's "Masters." The chapters are more than just an overview of facts; they highlight and explore the ways their society's—and OUR society's—views of women affected their careers, productivity, and relationships. Perhaps the most surprising revelation for me was when Beer pointed out that we know next to nothing about a particular composer's life as a mother, because it's a current expectation to include motherhood in any biography of a woman, whereas in the composer's time, it was considered irrelevant. That doesn't mean it was irrelevant to her, just that people recording this history didn't see it necessary to include in the story of her composing.
  
  Though the title presents the subjects as "forgotten women" and occasionally as "composers you've never heard of," that's, of course, dependent on the background of the reader. I think this book will be fully readable for someone who has never even heard of Clara Schumann. As for me, I'm a musicologist, so I knew of many, but not everyone! I had studied Caccini and Stozzi from a seminar on musical women in the Renaissance, and as one who's dissertation focused on the 19th-century, I was already quite familiar with Hensel and Schumann (though the focus of this monograph gave me new perspective on them!), but I'll admit I'd never heard of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianna Martines, and Elizabeth Maconchy, which is a real shame. Fortunately, Beer provides a listening list to acquaint the reader to the composers' most successful and/or most characteristic works, as her descriptions often make the reader thirsty to hear them!
  
  Beer has written a wonderful book that should become a standard in any "Intro to Musicology" course, as well as a starting point for research into any of the included composers. The prose is readable, the details relevant and interesting. I learned a lot, and I hope I carry the lessons into my blog writing, thinking about how I present the various aspects—domestic life, childhood, career—of composers of any gender.
• 
  Lara

  One of the best books of music history I have read, ever. Beautifully researched and written, it not only tells the often hard-to-find stories of eight women at various eras of music history, but does a beautiful job of contextualizing their stories within the eras and societies in which they existed. Beer brings a lot of nuance to how the role of women composers has evolved through the centuries.
• 
  Joshua Powell

  A few years ago I began actively seeking out and listening to classical music composed by women (of which there is an enormous and extraordinary overlooked repertoire) and I was thrilled to discover this book last month. While the best of these composers' works stand on their own and need no context in order to be appreciated, I find I get so much more out of a composition if I understand the circumstances and situation in which they were created. Unfortunately, biographies on these brilliant but neglected composers are difficult to find. Even the paltry liner notes from recordings of their works (what few exist) often replicate each other verbatim.
  
  This book, however, was superbly researched, with compelling writing and insightful analysis: I only wish there were more. I hope the author writes a followup, since there are so many other fascinating composers understandably but regrettably omitted (Louise Farrenc, Rebecca Clarke, Florence Price, for instance). The eight composers she focuses on are a good selection in any case, and the book does much to illuminate their works, and indeed listening to them is now a fuller and richer experience. For anyone who enjoys classical music at all I would say you owe it to yourself to read this book, and more importantly to listen to some of the masterpieces it details - you don't know what you're missing.
• 
  Anna Katharine

  My 90-year-old piano teacher, who spent a lifetime as a concertizing pianist, recommended this to me. My musical history knowledge is sparse at best, so I'm sure she got more out of it than I did- but even to a layperson, it's shocking to learn how very limited women's lives have historically been. Like my favorite historical fiction, the stories of these eight female composers (Caccini, Strozzi, Jacquet de la Guerre, Martines, Hensel, Schumann, Boulanger, and Maconchy) made the challenges of simply surviving as a woman- much less finding a way to let society provide space for creativity and expression- very real. Ranging from the 16th century to the mid-20th, the roadblocks for each woman are different, but no less inspiring. I knew, for instance, that society has associated actresses and singers with prostitution until well into the 20th century, but didn't realize that in the 16th century courtesans were effectively the ONLY women who created or performed music. For Caccini to do the work on which she thrived, her only choice was to navigate the tricky social waters of court. Even for the later composers- Boulanger and Maconchy- the support and cooperation of the men in their lives was critical their success. Though an academic work, this book is engaging, and opens up a whole new world of music to explore.
• 
  Penmouse

  Author Anna Beer's Sounds and Sweet Airs tells about the almost forgotten history of women composers. Her book tells about some of the women who wrote beautiful music during a time when women were supposed to marry and keep quiet.
  
  I love how Beer manages to painlessly tell the history as her writing is entertaining while being educational.
  
  The one drawback of her book is I thought her Notes From the Silence was a bit long.
  
  Recommend.
• 
  Gabby

  An interesting overview of several composers... reading this book is both inspiring and maddening. These amazing composers were put in a box because of their gender, and the musical world is the poorer for it.
• 
  Lisa Anita

  I learned so much about the 8 composers featured in this book! The story of Fanny Hensel was the most tragic for me: that such immense talent was suppressed only to have Hensel finally decide to start publishing right before her life was cut short!
  
  The book could be so much more accessible and reach a wider audience with a good editor. Repetitiveness, side tangents that don’t add to the story, and messy chronology could be cut or reworked. It would have been immensely helpful to have a timeline of the lives of these 8 women with perhaps some data on their contemporaries so as to better place them. Finally, I was frustrated to find the “Works Consulted” organized by author’s last name. This book is really 8 mini-biographies and it would have made so much more sense to organize this section by listing the sources consulted for each composer!
• 
  Leanna Keith

  It took me quite some time to read this whole book, but this is mostly because I wanted to really, truly, learn and process the lives of each of these women - to listen to the music and think of their lives.
  It is so vastly important that this book exists - as a person with not one, but TWO degrees in classical music, it was shocking to me how little I knew (if anything!) about each of these composers. The composers that I had heard of in college were primarily juxtaposed with their more famous counterparts (Clara with Robert, Fanny with Felix) and mentioned flippantly and without focus on their work.
  If you're curious about this book, I highly recommend it. Beyond the historical content, the music that can be discovered is well worth the time.
• 
  Carol

  An unabashedly feminist introduction to eight women composers from the 17th through the 20th centuries, Sounds and Sweet Airs is a good overview of the lives of these composers. Beers gives frank and interesting commentary on how ideas about women and their roles throughout history have defined and limited the ways women could create and perform music, and shows how these limitations affected each of the composers for good or ill. This book is meant for the general reader rather than the serious music student, but is very enjoyable and a good gateway to further study of these composers.
• 
  Naomi

  “Yes, the chord of C major is not, in itself, political, but who is allowed to use it, and how they are allowed to use it, where we can hear it when they have used it, is.”
  
  Yeah. Wow. To think what we all miss because of the patriarchy!
  A sad commentary on the state of humanity & cultural arbiters, but thankfully with some bright spots. Along with oppression and illness and tragedy, some good families, a couple good husbands, and perseverance.
  Fascinating book, which comes with a lovely recommended playlist for further listening.
• 
  sarah

  this book was a fun read about women composers in classical music and served to confirm that a) men really get everything in this world b) i greatly dislike anything pre-1800s and c) women in music needs to be a thing. although the author sometimes spends too much time discussing the uninteresting circumstances of these people's lives and not enough time talking about the kind of music and the kind of composing they were doing, she does justice to their music and their legacies