Text 16281, 90 rader
Skriven 2014-08-26 20:09:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av NANCY BACKUS
Ärende: women in the arts 852
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 ML>> The difficulties for women in careers were enormous.
 ML>> Remember again that Fanny Mendelssohn
 ML>> had to have her songs published under her brother's name.
 NB>> Hadn't forgotten that... And I don't deny that in most cases the
 NB>> difficulties were definitely enormous...  Just that there were a few
 NB>> that managed to beat the odds... :)

They really didn't. It's revisionist thinking to imagine
that women had professional careers, not because of any
lack of talent, but because of lack of opportunity.

 ML> Nannerl Mozart was treated like a trained monkey, though by
 ML> some accounts she was as talented as her brother (Wolfgang
 ML> also, but he grew out of it); 
 NB> Leopold thought he had a good thing going...  ;0  Wolfgang wrote his
 NB> 4-hand duets for himself and his sister, I understood...  Dunno if she
 NB> ever played them as an adult, though...

According to biographical articles in Grove and elsewhere,
she didn't play anything as an adult (in public, anyhow).

 ML> there was pretty much no place for a woman in any
 ML> professional or intellectual position until relatively
 ML> recently. Clara might have found a niche had her career not
 ML> been subordinated to that of her husband, but it's not clear
 ML> how seriously she would have been taken. I can't think of a
 ML> woman with an independent career in the field like between
 ML> Hildegarde and the Boulanger sisters. 
 NB> Amy Beach, maybe...?   I've not made a in-depth study of it, but have
 NB> been at least aware of women in music...  There were a number of women
 NB> active in writing hymns, both words and music, but that may be not
 NB> quite the same topic...  :)

Mrs. Beach is a particular favorite of mine, as her husband
was a member of my club (maybe 80 years before I became one).
She was from a prominent family and married into a prominent
family, and those facts both facilitated her early career and
hindered her mature career. She was expected to behave in a
certain way, and by and large (unlike the Cynics, see below)
did so. She was expected to take the bushel basket off her
light precisely once a year, so she turned to composition.
As such, she was generally respected (I am not exactly fond
of her music but see it as a somewhat washed out facsimile
of Foote or Chadwick). It's unclear what she could have done
if not for her social constraints; also unclear what she
would have done or what her reputation would now be if she
had been or pretended to be a man.

 ML> It of course was worse in the performing arts than in literature
 ML> where one could hide behind a male name or similar subterfuges.
 NB> Like Currer Bell and her sisters, George Sand, etc...  If they weren't
 NB> seen, who'd know that they weren't male...  ;)

Yep, that was the example I had in mind.

 NB> ... I'm not a cynic, just a very frustrated optimist.

Here's another case of the classic meaning getting turned on
its head. Practitioners of the real thing were happy because
they were freed from earthly desires. Nowadays a cynic is
someone who is unhappy because of observation of other people's
earthly desires.

Poulet en cocotte
cat: French, poultry, main
servings: 4

1 fine chicken, drawn
50 g butter
500 g Reinette apples
8 sm shallots
10 cl Calvados Grand Solage de Boulard
1 orange, juice of
s&p

Season the inside of the chicken. Truss it.
Brown it on all sides in the butter, cooking 20 min,
turning and basting constantly. Flambe with the
Calvados. Peel and core the apples and cut them
into sixths. Arrange the slices around the chicken.
Finish cooking over low heat, basting often.

Cut up the chicken and arrange the apples around.
Pour the cooking liquid over.

Michel Bruneau, restaurant "La Bourride," Caen

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