In 1792, British author Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Women, arguing women’s right to vote. The book was a small but important part of the numerous waves of feminism that have continued to focus attention on improving the role and status of women in the evolution of civilization. Feminist musicologists and others active in the musical world, especially during the last decades of the twentieth century into the twenty-first, have focused on issues concerning the place of women in music.¹ These scholars point out that specifically in music, Mrs. Jameson’s (see preface) outlook continues to reign...

Born a princess at the court of Güstrow, an active north German cultural center, Duchess Sophie-Elisabeth of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (August 20, 1613–July 12, 1676) made a distinctive mark on the course of German baroque music (fig. 1). Her noble rank and multifaceted talents gave her access to leading avenues of German cultural life, above all in music, along with a number of the most distinguished composers and performers of the seventeenth century. Yet nobility directly presented her with the challenges of a turbulent time and place in Germany and throughout Europe. An ambitious and effective impresario, an ardent arts patron,...

If you know something of the palace of Versailles, the city of Paris, and the landscapes of Jean-Antoine Watteau, you have glimpsed the world of the French composer, harpsichordist, and organist Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729).¹ She was the first woman to have a work, her opera Céphale et Procris, staged at the Académie Royale de Musique, the prestigious opera house in Paris. An older contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel, Jacquet de La Guerre was baptized on March 17, 1665, according to her church records.² No birth certificate has been found (fig. 8). Catherine...

The birth of Josephine Caroline Lang in Munich on March 14, 1815, crowned a remarkable musical dynasty with perhaps its most illustrious member. Aside from the situations of Lang’s contemporaries Fanny (Caecilie) Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel (1805–1847) and Clara Schumann (1819–1896)—remarkable figures now well documented for their accomplishments—it is difficult to conceive of a more advantageous confluence of extraordinary native musical gifts, favorable family circumstances, and high urban cultural surroundings in the making of a German artist in the nineteenth century. That is, Lang’s life and works are defined here in terms of the particular society, time, and...

On February 19, 1930, after a performance of music by the Viennese composer Maria Bach (1896–1978), an unidentified critic for the Neue Freie Presse slung demeaning arrows: “… This young woman is decidedly gifted. Certainly, she glows and storms. But knows not where she is going! Ability and childlikeness coexist. All said, the music turns into an enchanting jumble! And she does this with talent. How much little Maria imagines herself to be Stravinsky …; genius or philistine, holy or devilish, she could become anything—perhaps even a completely useful composer!”¹

And on March 23 of the same year,...

This author has been hearing Ann Schein play since we were both about junior high school age. In fact, a prodigy first recognized when she climbed up on the piano bench at the age of three, she has never stopped playing. And her parents, Ernest and Betty Schein, gave her unceasing encouragement and expertise gained from their own intense musical pasts. What was it about Schein that has always drawn me and countless others to her playing? From the first time I heard her, I was entranced by the tonal beauty she could draw from the piano (by no means...