Elements in Women in Music – serie

Leokadiya Kashperova's romantic compositions were highly regarded by Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui, and by Balakirev whose works she premiered and recorded. In 1907, Kashperova performed her own compositions to critical acclaim in Leipzig, Berlin and London. After the 1917 Revolution following her death in 1940, her name joined her fine music in historical anonymity and oblivion. This Element is the result of twenty years' research culminating in eight study-visits by the author to St Petersburg, Moscow and the Yaroslavl/Kostroma region. The Biography (section 1) is the first ever written about this composer. Kashperova's Memoirs (section 2) and her Recollections of Anton Rubinstein (section 3) are made available in translation for the first time. Together with a new edition of her compositions (Boosey & Hawkes, London) this Element aims to support the restoration of Kashperova to her rightful place in music history as Russia's foremost female composer of the early twentieth century.

The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, MS 27766 of the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, is the only volume of sixteenth-century polyphony with a secure provenance in a female convent. Its extraordinary survival is made all the more important by its origin at the Florentine convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, the convent in which Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, daughter of Galileo Galilei, spent the last two-thirds of her life. This Element uses archival sources related to San Matteo to create a historical context for the manuscript's music and the lives of the nuns for whom it was written. Analysis of the music is accompanied by both notated and audiovisual musical examples, performed by the UK all-female early music ensemble, Musica Secreta.

The city of Liverpool is renowned for its popular music, although the formidable hagiography which has developed around the Beatles tends to dominate historical considerations to the virtual exclusion of the many other varied genres which have flourished in the city before, during, and after them. Within Liverpool's popular-music past is a partially hidden history of women's musical leadership. This Element concerns the Grafton Rooms' bandleader, dancer, and pianist Mary Hamer (1904-1992). Hamer led the otherwise all-male dance band at the Grafton for two decades, providing dancers with first-class dance music. The Element considers Hamer within the rapidly evolving dance music culture of interwar Liverpool, and discusses the different genres and sub-genres of popular music and dance presented at the Grafton and the role(s) of women in popular music and as bandleaders. This is contextualised within the contemporary social anxieties of popular dance cultures, sexuality, faith, class, and race.

Regarded as the 'first Czech woman composer of importance' by the Grove Dictionary in 1954, Julie Reisserová's name has since virtually disappeared from the musical and musicological landscape. Reisserová, one of Albert Roussel's most famous Czech students during the interwar period, was not only a successful composer in her time, but also an active feminist. Her music was generally well received and performed by prestigious musicians. The only comprehensive study of her life and work, published in 1948, was written by Jiřina Vacková. If Vacková was able to investigate the personal archives of the diplomat Jan Reisser - Reisserová's husband - before they were seized and/or destroyed by the communist regime, her book remains hagiographical. This Element draws up a new biographical sketch of the artist, reviews Reisserová's thoughts on the status of women composers between the wars, considers the reception of her six surviving scores, and examines her style.

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) is now remembered largely because she was a member of Les Six, a group of French composers active in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Tailleferre encountered many obstacles, most notably a difficult personal life including two brief marriages to men who were unsupportive of her musical career; it is also true that critics tended to focus on her gender rather than her musical style. This Element tells the fascinating story of Tailleferre's life and long career and, most significantly, explores the development of her musical style and her role in the development of neoclassicism in France. In recent years, international performers have rediscovered her appealing, lively music and have at last started to bring Tailleferre to wider audiences. This Element will contribute to the rediscovery of Tailleferre and will reveal her to be a significant force in twentieth-century French music.

This Element discusses the figure of the cantora - or woman music poet - and the development of her artistic activity in a context of post-colonial paradigms in Chilean and Latin American societies. Through a historical overview of this multifaceted concept, alongside gender construction in colonial Latin America, this Element offers insights on how the figure of the cantora developed in the confluence between discrimination against festive popular culture and the restrictions imposed on women in a context of an inherited patriarchal order. Moreover, it examines the embodiment of the cantora archetype within the contemporary urban folkloric scene in Chile as a performative exercise of identity construction that is framed in a process of cultural resistance. Revealing how contemporary cantoras are continuing the legacy of their predecessors has become especially relevant at the time of writing in 2020-22, amidst a wave of political protests against long-standing social disparities in Chile.

The city of Liverpool is renowned for its popular music, although the formidable hagiography which has developed around the Beatles tends to dominate historical considerations to the virtual exclusion of the many other varied genres which have flourished in the city before, during, and after them. Within Liverpool's popular-music past is a partially hidden history of women's musical leadership. This Element concerns the Grafton Rooms' bandleader, dancer, and pianist Mary Hamer (1904-1992). Hamer led the otherwise all-male dance band at the Grafton for two decades, providing dancers with first-class dance music. The Element considers Hamer within the rapidly evolving dance music culture of interwar Liverpool, and discusses the different genres and sub-genres of popular music and dance presented at the Grafton and the role(s) of women in popular music and as bandleaders. This is contextualised within the contemporary social anxieties of popular dance cultures, sexuality, faith, class, and race.

Regarded as the 'first Czech woman composer of importance' by the Grove Dictionary in 1954, Julie Reisserová's name has since virtually disappeared from the musical and musicological landscape. Reisserová, one of Albert Roussel's most famous Czech students during the interwar period, was not only a successful composer in her time, but also an active feminist. Her music was generally well received and performed by prestigious musicians. The only comprehensive study of her life and work, published in 1948, was written by Jiřina Vacková. If Vacková was able to investigate the personal archives of the diplomat Jan Reisser - Reisserová's husband - before they were seized and/or destroyed by the communist regime, her book remains hagiographical. This Element draws up a new biographical sketch of the artist, reviews Reisserová's thoughts on the status of women composers between the wars, considers the reception of her six surviving scores, and examines her style.

The Biffoli-Sostegni manuscript, MS 27766 of the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, is the only volume of sixteenth-century polyphony with a secure provenance in a female convent. Its extraordinary survival is made all the more important by its origin at the Florentine convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, the convent in which Suor Maria Celeste Galilei, daughter of Galileo Galilei, spent the last two-thirds of her life. This Element uses archival sources related to San Matteo to create a historical context for the manuscript's music and the lives of the nuns for whom it was written. Analysis of the music is accompanied by both notated and audiovisual musical examples, performed by the UK all-female early music ensemble, Musica Secreta.

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) is now remembered largely because she was a member of Les Six, a group of French composers active in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Tailleferre encountered many obstacles, most notably a difficult personal life including two brief marriages to men who were unsupportive of her musical career; it is also true that critics tended to focus on her gender rather than her musical style. This Element tells the fascinating story of Tailleferre's life and long career and, most significantly, explores the development of her musical style and her role in the development of neoclassicism in France. In recent years, international performers have rediscovered her appealing, lively music and have at last started to bring Tailleferre to wider audiences. This Element will contribute to the rediscovery of Tailleferre and will reveal her to be a significant force in twentieth-century French music.

This Element explores the life and work of Grażyna Bacewicz (1909-1969), as a composer, violinist, pianist and author. She lived a remarkable life in Poland, navigating the complex world of Polish communist society and Soviet dominance after the Second World War, and brought Polish music to wider European attention. The Element describes the historical context of her life, her major achievements, and the language and development of her compositions, which attracted notable interest in Polish musical life. She wrote a wide range of pieces, making a significant contribution to the string repertoire, with important String Quartets and violin works. In her sixty years she achieved impressive triumphs as a women composer, served the Polish Composers Union and often judged major international competitions.