Music was considered a societal talent in the 18th century, usually reflected a feminine accomplishment; it became a part of a lady’s education in the 19th century. However, some women such as Hensel and Beach were discouraged from pursuing a career in music because society excluded them from the theater and playing songs since people saw the public performance as immodest (Burkholder 754; Tick 332).
The dominant ideology of it was when women lived for the family’s benefit, and their primary function was to take care of the domestic sphere. For instance, when Beach married the rich doctor, the physician initially discouraged her that a career as a pianist was not of her social standard (Burkholder 755). Conversely, Hensel, just as her brother Felix, received equal education on how to compose and theorize composition lessons. At a young age, she played the piano and composed solo music pieces.
However, growing up as a woman, her music career deviated. According to Frisch, Hensel’s pursuance of composition was diverged because of the cultural and societal patterns, which viewed music as a male profession, as shown in Hansel’s brother, and not as a female career (86). Hensel’s culture and society’s prejudice over female performance in music resulted in her being restricted based on her social status, having come from an upper-middle-class society.
Great women composers in music history have been left out in unlimited classical musicians’ records. Historically they were oppressed and not allowed to expose their potential in various fields. However, some women were plausible and confirmed their abilities through music against society’s expectations (Upton 21). Amy Beach and Fenny Hensel were among the great composers who emerged to the limelight of the women’s revolution in music. Beach, a childhood prodigy from Boston, studied music and composition privately after society abolished her from pursuing the career.
Despite the University denying her a chance to study music, Beach was determined and incorporated the use of solo recitals from the public domains. She even exceeded society’s expectations by composing and publishing music through her husband’s name, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach. Before venturing into large-scale publications, the Beach’s society had the perception that she could not compose an album for being a woman. However, she outgrew the social norms to produce Gaelic symphony, which became the most sorted music publication by a female American composer. Most of her songs had an ethnic background and engaged with traditions of the German classics.
Fanny Mendelsohn, born in Hamburg, was among the women in the 19th century to be fully endorsed in music composition. Through her early education, and coming from a rich household in the line of her mother, the wealthiest Jewish families, Hensel pursued music, which her culture and society considered a low-class career. Hensel lived the opposite life to the rest of her peers. Most women of the Itzig family to which Hensel belonged were engaged with Berlin’s traditional existence as the heads of salons and as leaders of libraries and the artworks (Frisch 86).
However, just as men, these women defied society with the demand of not performing in theater and composing songs. For instance, even after being frustrated because of the societal limitation of women pursuing music, Hensel, through her “semiprivate life,” became involved in song composition and secret stage concerts. A move, though adhering to not society demands of public performances, defied the law of not pursuing a career in music (Upton 22).
Hensel engaged in music through the weekly musical meetings and the salon places where they had the opportunity to compose songs without being in public as demanded by society. Her piece of work, DasJahr, produced an array of pianistic styles in 1841 (plus a postlude) to become one of the most music organized by a key plan (Frisch 87). Both Fenny Mendelsohn Hensel and Army Breach passed through difficult societal victimization to prosper in their music professions. However, through determination and exceeding societal expectations, they both managed to compose the most sorted songs in history.
Works Cited
Beach, Amy. “To Stretch Our Ears: A Documentary History of America’s Music.” 62: Amy Beach Replies to Antonin Dvorak, edited by Alexander Heywood, W.W. Norton & Company, 2002, pp. 265-266.
Burkholder, Peter. “A History of Western Music”. The Nineteenth Century, edited by Peter Burkholder, Donald Grout, and Claude Palisca, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019, pp. 753-755.
Frisch, Walter. Music in The Nineteenth Century. W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Tick, Judith. “Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950.” Passed Away Is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life, I870-I900, edited by Jane Bowers and Judith Tick, Palgrave Macmillan Music Division, 1986, pp. 325-345.
Upton, George P. Women in Music. Chicago A. C. McClurg & Company, 1895.