How many women composers can you name who fall chronologically between the 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) and the 19th-century pianist/composer Clara Schumann (1819-1896)? What sources could you use to search for piano trios or art songs by women composers? Where can you read more about the achievements of women musicians over the centuries? Why were women rarely mentioned in standard music history texts until quite recently?

Clara Wieck, age 20, shortly before her marriage to Robert Schumann. Unfinished color drawing, 1840. Source: Clara Schumann, The Artist and the Woman by Nancy B. Reich

Even 40 years or so after the so-called women's movement brought the terms "women" and "music" together, the subject of "women in music" is still sensitive in many circles. (The origin of the women's movement is usually dated to 1963, with the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique; in 1964 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed, barring discrimination based on race, sex, and other grounds.) There are some who assert that musical compositions by women did not find their way into the "standard" repertoire because the works were inferior to those by men. There are also many women composers who prefer not to have their works included on "women composer" programs or recordings, since they believe that their works should be known on their own merits. Whatever one's position on the subject, we are fortunate that the interest in combining the terms "women" and "music" has fostered a wealth of resources that help to shed light on the history of women in music, and to identify the composers who were left out of the standard reference books and bring their music forward to those who wish to explore it.

Histories of Women in Music

In the introduction to their excellent compendium Women Making Music: The Western Art Tradition, 1150-1950 (University of Illinois Press, 1987), co-editors Jane Bowers and Judith Tick state that "The absence of women in the standard music histories is not due to their absence in the musical past. Rather, the questions so far asked by historians have tended to exclude them...." This collection of 15 essays by esteemed musicologists presents many of these previously unasked questions to illuminate the history of women in music over the ages, from Anne Bagnall Yardley's essay "'Ful weel she soong the service dvynne': The Cloistered Musician in the Middle Ages" to Marcia Citron's essay on "Women and the Lied, 1775-1850" and Carol Neuls-Bates' essay on "Women's Orchestras in the United States, 1925-1945."

Karin Pendle's Women & Music: A History (2nd ed., Indiana University Press, 2001) also conveys the history of women in music through a series of essays by different authors. While Bowers and Tick focus their study on the western art tradition, Pendle also includes a few essays on women in world music, and women in American jazz. It is interesting to note that both of these books narrate the history of women in music through compilations of essays by different scholars, rather than utilizing the so-called "great man" approach found in most standard music history books, which are written by one person (usually a man).

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Aaron Cohen's International Encyclopedia of Women Composers (2nd ed., Greenwood Press, 1987) is perhaps the most ambitious dictionary of women composers published to date, containing biographies of 6,196 women composers from medieval times to the time of publication. Cohen went to extraordinary lengths to locate and document women composers from all times and regions of the world. Unfortunately this ambitious project is filled with errors, and should be used carefully.

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For more about women in music, be sure to view a special slide show: Celebrating Women at Juilliard: A Hitory in Pictures.

Women were not particularly well represented in the 1980 edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, edited by Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel (Macmillan/Norton, 1994), endeavors to remedy this neglect with its scholarly documentation of nearly 900 women. The entries follow the same format as entries in the New Grove Dictionary, with biographies, work lists, and bibliographies for each composer.

The second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) also goes a long way toward remedying previous neglect of women with its inclusion of 578 women composers. It is also the first edition of Grove to include an extensive article on the subject of "Women in Music," authored by Judith Tick and Ellen Koskoff. Indeed, the introduction to this article (titled "Historiography") provides a detailed survey of the study of women in music, and the bibliography attached to the article lists many more resources on women in music than this Juilliard Journal article could begin to cover. Users of the online version of New Grove (available to all members of the Juilliard community through JUILCAT Plus) can locate women composers in the dictionary by using the "Explore" function and browsing Composers—Women. The list is then sub-divided by century.

Finally, a newly published dictionary is Greenwood Press's Women and Music in America Since 1900: An Encyclopedia, edited by Kristine H. Burns (2002). This two-volume source covers American women musicians active in a variety of genres: classical, rock, pop, jazz, and country. It also includes topical articles on gender issues, education, organizations, and other relevant issues.

Bibliographies of Literature About Women and Music

The first substantial 20th-century bibliography of literature about the subject of women and music was Women in American Music: A Bibliography of Music and Literature, compiled and edited by Adrienne Fried Block and Carol Neuls-Bates (Greenwood Press, 1979). This book documents music by American women composers along with a substantial amount of literature about the subject. A more recently published literature bibliography is Margaret Ericson's Women and Music: A Selective Bibliography on Women and Gender Issues in Music, 1987-1992 (G.K. Hall, 1996). Ericson's book (which began as a Music Library Association project that I was involved with) includes more than 1,800 entries on the collective subject of women and music.

Bibliographies of Music

Those searching for repertoire by women composers are aided by numerous bibliographies of music by women. Among these are Rose-Marie Johnson's Violin Music by Women Composers: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide (Greenwood Press, 1989), Adele Heinrich's Organ and Harpsichord Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalog (Greenwood Press, 1991), Helen Walker-Hills's Piano Music by Black Women Composers: A Catalogue of Solo and Ensemble Works (Greenwood Press, 1992), Heidi M. Boenke's Flute Music by Women Composers: An Annotated Catalog (Greenwood Press, 1988), and Pamela Youngdahl Dees's A Guide to Piano Music by Women Composers: Vol. 1: Composers Born Before 1900 (Greenwood Press, 2002).

A unique resource that documents extant manuscripts and printed music by women composers prior to 1800 is Barbara Garvey Jackson's Say Can You Deny Me: A Guide to Surviving Music by Women From the 16th Through the 18th Centuries (University of Arkansas Press, 1994). Jackson lists hundreds of works by women composers from a time when it was assumed that none existed. The title phrase "Say Can You Deny Me" is the first line of a song by the 18th-century composer-singer Gertrud Elizabeth Mara.

Score Series and Anthologies

There are numerous score publication series and several anthologies devoted specifically to music by women, many of which may be found in Juilliard's library collection. Of special note is the historical series Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, edited by Juilliard alumna Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer (G.K. Hall, 1990- ). This series presents modern performing editions of music by women from the ninth through the 20th centuries. Glickman is also the founder of Hildegard Publishing Company, which has published more than 500 scores by women composers since its founding in 1988 (a profile of Glickman is found in last month's Juilliard Journal). Another publishing company devoted specifically to music by women is the German house Furore Verlag. Furore's catalog includes works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Lili Boulanger, Margaret Bonds, Teresa Carreno, Rebecca Clarke, and many other familiar and less-familiar names.

Space limitations for this brief article do not allow mention of the many biographies of individual women composers that may be found in the library collection, recordings of works by women, or studies of women performers. Also beyond the scope of this overview are resources on the relatively new subject of gender issues and other studies that explore the sociology of women in music. A more extensive listing of resources on women in the performing arts is available through JUILCAT -- http://library.juilliard.edu/screens/womenshistory.html. Gratefully we live in a time when there is no question that women are well-represented (and, increasingly well-documented) in the performing arts.

Jane Gottlieb is vice president for library and information resources.