Text 16424, 81 rader
Skriven 2014-08-30 10:34:00 av NANCY BACKUS (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: Re: women in the arts 852
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-=> Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus on 08-26-14  20:09 <=-

 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
 NB>> few that managed to beat the odds... :)
 ML> They really didn't. It's revisionist thinking to imagine
 ML> that women had professional careers, not because of any
 ML> lack of talent, but because of lack of opportunity.

I think we are actually pretty close to agreement here, but I keep
coming back to Clara, who was able to champion both her husband's works
and also their friend Johannes'...  Maybe it's revisionist teaching I've
been exposed to, but there's still something there...  :)

 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...

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

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

I'm thinking that what it really boils down to is that women might have
had careers in the arts, but not to the degree that they might have been
able to have, had there not been those constraints on them...  I imagine
that there might have been similar, but other, constraints that kept
some male composers/performers from being able to shine as they might
have, as well... 
 
 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
 NB>> weren't seen, who'd know that they weren't male...  ;)
 ML> Yep, that was the example I had in mind.

Who'da thought a woman could describe a Heathcliff so well...  ;)
 
 NB>> ... I'm not a cynic, just a very frustrated optimist.
 ML> Here's another case of the classic meaning getting turned on
 ML> its head. Practitioners of the real thing were happy because
 ML> they were freed from earthly desires. Nowadays a cynic is
 ML> someone who is unhappy because of observation of other people's
 ML> earthly desires.

Oh, I dunno...  many cynics even now are merely armoring themselves
against disappointment by their cynicism... lifting themselves above,
so to speak...  :)

ttyl         neb

... If we had some bread we could have ham sandwiches...if only we had ham

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