1st Edition
Female Composers, Conductors, Performers: Musiciennes of Interwar France, 1919-1939
Drawing upon extensive archival research, interview material, and musical analysis, Female Composers, Conductors, Performers: Musiciennes of Interwar France, 1919–1939 presents an innovative study of women working as professional musicians in France between the two World Wars. Hamer positions the activities, achievements, and reception of women composers, conductors, and performers against a contemporary socio-political climate that was largely hostile to female professionalism. The musical styles and techniques of Marguerite Canal, Jeanne Leleu, Germaine Tailleferre, Yvonne Desportes, Elsa Barraine, and Claude Arrieu are discussed with reference to significant works dating from the interwar period. Hamer highlights the activities of Jane Evrard and her Orchestre féminin de Paris as well as the reception of the Orchestra of the Union des Femmes Professeurs et Compositeurs de Musique, a contemporary pro-suffrage organisation that was dedicated to defending the collective interests of musiciennes and campaigning for their employment rights. Beyond women composers and conductors, Hamer also sheds light on female performers and their contribution to the interwar early music revival.
List of Music Examples.
Preface and Acknowledgements.
List of Abbreviations.
Part 1:The Contested Boundaries of Interwar musiciennes.
Chapter 1: Conservative Politics and Domestic Ideals: The Social Position of musiciennes in Interwar France.
Chapter 2:The Challenge of Professional musiciennes: The Education, Career Opportunities, and Reception of Women Musicians.
Part 2: Women as Composers.
Chapter 3: Early Female Winners of the Prix de Rome: Marguerite Canal and Jeanne Leleu.
Chapter 4: In Les Six: The Case of Germaine Tailleferre.
Chapter 5: Paul Dukas’s Female Composition Students: Elsa Barraine, Yvonne Desportes, and Claude Arrieu.
Part 3: Women as Performers.
Chapter 6:Women Conductors and All-Woman Orchestras.
Chapter 7: On the Concert Platform: Women as Perfomers.
Chapter 8: Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Index.
Biography
Laura Hamer is Associate Professor of Music at Liverpool Hope University. She is interested in women in music, nineteenth- and earlier twentieth-century music, and criticism and reception studies. She is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Women in Music since 1900 (forthcoming).
