Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Why We Dont Have Famous Female Composer In History ?

Mr. Lion: So the... idea of historically, etc, is gone and you are now refering to contemporary and film composers? I actually know a few female composers in the media. It could very well be that the motherhood could potentially be an issue for a famous career, I can't tell.

BTW, can we put down numbers on how many Greek composers are famous? In all 10 millions of people, the percentage is far from even decent. It's awful. I guess this must mean that Greeks are also different than the rest of the world as far as I intelligence is concerned, right? :P

Well, Xenakis makes up for the low numbers.

LMAO!

There's also me! Bouahahahahahaha! (honestly a joke! I promise, I swear).

A couple of names very worth of mentioning ,since I'm at it are:
Yanni Christou
and
Theodor Antoniou

Both are stunning, resemble nothing of the rest of us Greeks! In all very worthy composers! Really!

I think he said "famous."

And here's a slightly off-topic take on this question. So many of the greatest female characters in novels are women, but the authors are men :

Flaubert : Madame Bovary
Tolstoy : Anna Karenina
Richardson : Pamela
Alexandre Dumas : La Dame aux Camelias
Daniel Defoe : Moll Flanders
Nathaniel Hawthorne : The Scarlet Letter
Henry James : Daisy Miller

While no one denies the place in literature of such heroines as Elizabeth Barrett, (Jane Austen) and Jane Eyre, (Charlotte Bronte), are there any great literary male heroes created by women authors? Is Heathcliffe (Wuthering Heights) a viable candidate. Which others?

Why, in literary history, have men writen so successfully about women, but women seem not to have been as successful in writing about men?

Has this changed in more modern times?

Regards,

Is film composing the only composing that's being done these days? Jennifer Higdon and Joan Tower (both Pulitzer Prize winning composers) might disagree.

Does anyone else find it disturbing that Piano World has seen two threads recently that have focused on prejudicial notions of superiority based on sex or race?

Two words: Harry Potter.
I think that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester were very successful characters also. In what way were they not?

If you also read the scientific studies on IQ tests you'll find plenty of evidence to show that these are flawed and do not accurately represent intelligence, genius or otherwise.

Most intelligence tests and studies were written and designed by men - originally to test men. Bias and skewed results abound!

These are dangerous waters, and I consider myself a feminist, but I don't I like the politically correct tenor of the discussion. There does actually seem to be a scarcity of women composers, even if you factor in all the societal stuff. The operative word is "seem" as obviously I can't prove it.

But would it be so horrible if it turned out there was something in the male brain that makes it more likely they'll be better at composing music? I can't cite them, but I do believe reading that there are studies indicating men are better at mechanical thinking, including spacial relations than women. I'm also almost certain there are studies that support the idea there are differences in the way men and women process language.

My point is, there are difference between the male and female brain. This isn't bad, or sexist in and of itself. it simply is.

So go ahead all you p.c.'ers. Savage me if you must. I can take it :>)

A majority perhaps, but there certainly are women deservedly at the top of the field:

Rachel Portman (film)
Jennifer Higdon, Chen Yi (concert music)

Dorthy Sayers /Lord Peter Wimsey
Beatrix Potter/ Peter Rabbit
George Eliott/ Silas Marner
Margaret Mitchell/ Rhett Butler
Diana Galbadon/Jamie Fraser
Ann Rice/ Lestat
Dorothy Dunnett/Francis Crawford
Mary Shelly/Dr Victor Frankenstein and friend
Harper Lee /Atticus Finch

I'd say in general that the most memorable characters from fiction are women, independently of who's doing the writing. I'm going to venture to say that they're easier to write about with a certain heroic depth. Moreover, the truly interesting fictional male characters seem to have an unmistakeable feminine dimension. Jude Fawley, perhaps Humbert Humbert, Raskolnikov,Holden Caulfield, Gatsby..

Of course there are many more...

Thanks for the input, folks.

If pressed, however, I could not put Harry Potter,[1] Peter Rabbit, Peter Wimsey, or Vampire Lestat on the same plane as such female characters as Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Manon Lescaut and Marguerite Gauthier as far as depth of character and character analysis are concerned.

As for the others such as Rhett Butler, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester, while pivotal to the action of the plots in which they are set, each was not the central character, - that being a woman in each case - and I was looking for male heroes of novels written by women.

However, not to derail this further, I'll let everyone else get back to the topic at hand.

[1] Hence, the smiley face, perhaps?

Regards,

I just bought Clara Schumann's Kadenzen yesterday.

About pseudonyms... George Eliot (although not a composer) was a woman for example. She had to publish under a male's name to get published at all....

Maybe check out my response just above yours if you missed it? Nothing great, but I think there's more food for thought along the lines you introduce..

Good point! Thanks for that.

Regards,

Gina Losasso wrote this article ...
I know her, I am in one of her societies, she is very smart and a chess champion...

No, my dear Bruce, but they're a good deal more entertaining (with the possible exception of Peter Rabbit) from the feminine point of view. I would think the inclusion of Peter Rabbit might've tipped you off that my tongue was somewhere in the general vicinity of my cheek.

Well, let's go from the other angle: why are there so many famous male German composers?

And did you know that Vivaldi was almost unheard of before vinyl records became commonplace? And that Mozart was hardly played for some decades in the first half of the 20th century?

There is some interesting study regarding the career structure of composers, and that could provide a certain insight, but reading the way the discussion is going it seems to be that the question was intended to be: why was there not a famous 19th century female composer?

Here in Australia some of the most famous and commissioned composers are women - but at the moment there is a big debate going on regarding why one of the leading theatre companies very rarely employs female directors or stages plays by female playwrights. Getting the job in the first place is an important part of how you get to be famous.... Meantime, there are no shortage of famous artists who are female.