Marie is admitted to the Paris Conservatoire. The news wouldn’t be so interesting if it hadn’t happened in the year 1795. Until then, no European woman had the opportunity to develop her musical talent with a specific and adequate musical education. Trying to hide another’s talent is one of the greatest atrocities a person can commit and, despite the French example, it wasn’t until 1843 when the Leipzig Conservatory accepted that a woman be trained as a pianist in that institution.
Unfortunately, until recently, European conservatories have had limited access to training for female musicians, as certain disciplines should only be covered by male students. Many teachers did not want to train women in subjects such as counterpoint, advanced music theory or composition, and limited themselves to explaining basic harmony to their few female students.
That is the explanation for the fact that the composers of the 19th and 20th centuries belonged to houses with a musical or artistic vocation. For some of them, these families were the ideal breeding ground to follow sufficient musical education to reach a high artistic level. The most famous cases include Anna Magdalena (wife of Johan Sebastian Bach), Fanny Hensel (sister of Félix Mendelssohn), Clara Wieck (married to Robert Schumann, Alma Schlinder (married to Gustav Mahler) or the Boulanger sisters. .
No one can imagine how many women failed to compose music because they were not given the proper education, but we can honor some who have received excellence and recognition from their contemporaries despite being surpassed by the corresponding male celebrity (male, brother or father).
Tomorrow in our city the album Shadows will be presented, a project that values composers who were in the shadow of a great musician and who were not in the foreground despite the fact that their talent transcends their social circle.
In Shadows, cellist Lorenzo Meseguer and pianist Mario Mora selected works by Fanny and Félix Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Gustav Jenner, which shed light on that hidden 19th century in which the great composers we all know shone. The Fantasy in G minor by Fanny Mendelssohn, the Sonata in D major by Félix Mendelssohn, the Sonata in D major by Gustav Jenner (a student of Brahms), and the arrangement for cello and piano of Clara Schumann’s Romanzas are examples of what that was composed in a period of only seventy years and that reflects the artistic and musical level of two nineteenth century women and a man who were distinguished as they deserved.
We will be discussing these and other topics on this interesting evening.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
