Here's the backstory:
In 2015, Jessy McCabe, 17, petitioned one of Britain’s biggest exam boards to include female composers in its A-level music syllabus.
Ms. McCabe found that Edexcel’s A-level Music Syllabus featured 63 male composers and no female ones. She also observed that on 8 March 2015, BBC Radio 3 managed to programme an entire day of music by female composers to honour International Women’s Day.
“Surely, if BBC Radio 3 can play music composed by women for a whole day," Ms. McCabe wrote, "Edexcel could select at least one to be part of the syllabus alongside the likes of Holborne, Haydn and Howlin’ Wolf?”
Edexel was initially unwilling to acquiesce to Ms. McCabe's challenge. Its head of music wrote: “Given that female composers were not prominent in the western classical tradition (or others for that matter), there would be very few female composers that could be included.”
After a Change.org petition subsequently launched by Ms. McCabe received 4,000 signatures, Edexcel apparently bowed to public pressure and changed their 2016 syllabus to include works by five women: Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Kate Bush, Anoushka Shankar and Kaija Saariaho.
You can read more about this story here:
- The back-story about the petition, before the changes were implemented (The Guardian)
- Story about the success of the petition, which led to a slightly more inclusive changed syllabus (The Guardian)
The inclusion of female composers/songwriters in the 2016 syllabus was celebrated by some, and criticized by others. Among the critics was Damian Thompson, who, in a 2015 article in The Spectator (a conservative British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs, according to Wikipedia) entitled There’s a good reason why there are no great female composers, asked the question: How good is [women composers'] music compared with that of male composers?
He discussed works by several women composers – Clara Schumann (1819–1896), Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847), Amy Beach (1867–1944), Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994), and Thea Musgrave (born 1928) – to support his conclusion that women composers were not as good as their male counterparts, and therefore their music did not merit inclusion in the list of composers to be studied by British A-level students.
The counter-argument proposed by Ms. McCabe was that the inclusion of women composers in the Edexcel A-Level syllabus was important, “so that girls are freely able and inspired to become composers, to enrich the A-level syllabus and to ultimately ensure that women’s works are valued, as they should be.”
Here are a few thoughts further to this episode, and Mr. Thompson's response to it:
- As I pointed out in my previous post on this topic, the article's title, There's a good reason why there are no great female composers, is completely unrelated to the actual article. At no point does the author propose or discuss a reason, good or otherwise, why “there are no great female composers.”
- Further to the previous point, an unbiased and well-researched article exploring reasons for the extreme gender imbalance among composers of the common-practice period (roughly 1650-1900) would perhaps be enlightening to those that blithely assume that women and men competed on an equal playing field throughout history. They didn't, and, some argue, still don't, although the situation has improved significantly since the 1960's. Historically, the roles available to women were severely restricted, and, within this, the roles of women in any field within music were even more restricted. Yes, Clara Schumann managed to develop a career as a concert pianist, but women were barred from European orchestras; the Vienna Philharmonic did not accept a female member until 1997; The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra did not hire its first female musician until 1982 (violinist Madeleine Carruzzo). I would be curious to know how often these all-male orchestras performed works by women prior to 1900; if it occurred at all, I suspect it was extremely uncommon.
- Only one of the five women composers selected for criticism by Mr. Thompson was included in Edexcel's syllabus: Clara Schumann. He therefore spent the bulk of his article arguing against the inclusion of women composers whose music was not subsequently included in the revised syllabus, but perhaps Edexcel's syllabus was published after Thompson's article.
- All works discussed in Mr. Thompson's article were selected by him. It seems possible that musicologists with expertise in the music of the named composers might have been able to find other, stronger works by these composers for discussion; when one's intention is to prove that music by women composers is not very good, it can hardly be a surprise when the examples chosen to illustrate this point do so rather well.
- The threshold for inclusion in the Edexcell Syllabus is clearly not "all-time greatness," as in "equal in quality to the best music of Bach, Beethoven, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, and The Beatles." Ms. McCabe's letter, quoted above, mentions Anthony Holborne (late renaissance British composer of music primarily for lute, 1545-1602), and Howlin' Wolf (much-acclaimed blues singer and guitarist, 1910-1976). A quick perusal of Edexcel's 2016 syllabus reveals names such as Courtney Pine (British jazz musician, b. 1964), La Familia Valera Miranda (A family of musicians from the Oriente region of Cuba that play a mid-tempo form of ‘son’, a Cuban traditional musical style), as well as Vivaldi, Vaughan Williams, and Berlioz. The initial exclusion of works by all women from the Edexcell Syllabus sends a clear message that no women in the history of composition were as worthy of inclusion as any of the male musicians on the list, a position that is indefensible. Popular music artists are on the Edexcel list, but despite decades of great music by Kate Bush (subsequently included), Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Nina Simone, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Memphis Minnie, Laura Nyro, and countless others, not one was initially included. Film music composers are another category, and here again no females were initially chosen (Rachel Portman was included following Ms. McCabe's successful petition), despite the successful careers in this field of Sofia Gubaidulina, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Lesley Barber, or any of the other names on Wikipedia's list of female film composers.
- I'm not sufficiently familiar with Edexcel's history to know if they make a special effort to include British composers in their syllabus, but I noticed quite a few British musicians in the 2016 syllabus. If they do give British composers/musicians any kind of preferential status, which they have every right to do, why not make the effort to be inclusive of other groups within British society as well, such as women composers? Thanks to Ms. McCabe and a successful publicity campaign, the 2016 syllabus now does, albeit to a limited degree.
- As I mentioned above, Ms. McCabe argued in favour of the representation of women composers on the Edexcel syllabus, “so that girls are freely able and inspired to become composers, to enrich the A-level syllabus and to ultimately ensure that women’s works are valued, as they should be.” This in itself is an interesting argument – I don't know if there are any studies that prove that exposure to music by members of a target population empower or encourage other members of that target population to pursue careers in music, but it certainly seems possible. And if it is possible, then it seems worth doing. But mostly it's worth doing based purely on artistic merit.
Once again (I posted some recordings in my previous entry as well), here are a couple of recordings of music by Clara Schumann, with scrolling scores:
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