Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Women Opera Composers: Biographies from the 1500s to the 21st Century

Women Opera Composers: Biographies from the 1500s to the 21st Century Arts Reference Reviews Volume 31 · Number 4 · 2017 · 31-34 traditional approaches to art history and sets RR 2017/114 the tone for a thought-provoking analysis of Women Opera Composers: Biographies the subject. Its author is well placed to do so from the 1500s to the 21st Century with an impressive scholarly reputation. The work is organized into five chapters on Mary F. McVicker Institutional Hierarchies: Art and Craft; McFarland Genres and Contested Hierarchies; Markets, Jefferson, NC Publics, Expert Opinions; Taste, Criticism and Journalism; and Seeking a Moral Order: The vii  274 pp. Choice between Virtue and Pleasure. The development of collections, both ISBN 978 0 7864 9513 9 (print); ISBN 978 1 4766 2361 0 private and in museums and galleries, is a (e-book) fascinating discourse, richly supported with £43.95 $39.95 examples. The eighteenth century was the time Available in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East when great collections such as the Louvre and and Africa from Eurospan the Hermitage came into being, as well as the Keywords Biography, Opera, Composers British Royal Academy. Considerable space is Review DOI 10.1108/RR-01-2017-0022 given to considering commissioning and changing attitudes to particular genres such as The aims of this book are laudable, to gather in water colours. Particularly illuminating is the one volume a record of all female composers discussion on the development of art criticism from 1,500 to the present day, grouped through journalism, especially in France. chronologically into eight time periods. The need to impose a moral order is Each entry gives a brief biography and a list of discussed in a well-documented analysis of the works and the principle source material. The way in which artists resolved the conflict of author notes, regretfully, that there is no choosing between virtue and pleasure. This discography, as so little of this music has been thoughtful survey shows how artists reacted to recorded. There is a full name A-Z index at the changing attitudes to such topics as depravity back, which is helpful for known names, and this and deprivation, as well as consumerism and confirms if a composer is also listed in the section luxury. The popularity of disguises and nudity for librettists. are examples of how artists incorporated such However, there seems to be confusion in the ideas into their work. order of the separate sections (time periods). Within these, composers are listed by nationality. At a time of external expansion, the work McVicker has used the nationality given in the looks beyond Europe by considering the source, which means that many are not where one colonial influence. This is reflected in the might expect because boundaries have changed. I popularity of portraying oriental themes and found it confusing to find England and Scotland, exotica in late eighteenth-century art. was unsure if there were any references to Wales Additional chapters on the art of Japan, China or Ireland (either North or South) and then felt and India are available via the companion this might have been easier if these women had website. The work is well illustrated with been afforded an all-UK designation, or whether several pages in colour. the country difference actually mattered. So, it The author has convinced us that might have been better to list composers within the eighteenth-century art is an exceptionally rich sections by surname or date of birth and then have field to explore both for its depiction of the indexes to cross check by nationality, for example. current concerns of the day and for the way in Many names are very obscure and have just which art was regarded and marketed. Her one work listed, but for completeness, this makes treatment is masterly. There is plenty to the books a useful source. Also, the confining of inform both the serious academic and the these composers to those who have written opera general interested layman in this is presumably of further use to scholars. It is ground-breaking treatise as the text is readable probably not hugely useful for the lay musician but and clear. For anyone with even a passing is useful for women composing a service by interest in the eighteenth century, this book drawing attention to the large number of women will both enlighten and inform. It is well who have contributed to musical composition in supported with an extremely comprehensive this way and who deserve to be recorded alongside list of references, both printed and online. their more famous male counterparts. Diana Dixon Stella Thebridge Freelance reviewer and Editor Local Studies Principal Librarian: Schools and Reading, Librarian, Oakham, UK Warwickshire Libraries, Warwick, UK http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Reference Reviews Emerald Publishing

Women Opera Composers: Biographies from the 1500s to the 21st Century

Thebridge, Stella
Reference Reviews , Volume 31 (4): 1 – May 15, 2017
Download PDF
1 page

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/women-opera-composers-biographies-from-the-1500s-to-the-21st-century-zDF0GV9Qr0

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
0950-4125
DOI
10.1108/RR-01-2017-0022
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Arts Reference Reviews Volume 31 · Number 4 · 2017 · 31-34 traditional approaches to art history and sets RR 2017/114 the tone for a thought-provoking analysis of Women Opera Composers: Biographies the subject. Its author is well placed to do so from the 1500s to the 21st Century with an impressive scholarly reputation. The work is organized into five chapters on Mary F. McVicker Institutional Hierarchies: Art and Craft; McFarland Genres and Contested Hierarchies; Markets, Jefferson, NC Publics, Expert Opinions; Taste, Criticism and Journalism; and Seeking a Moral Order: The vii  274 pp. Choice between Virtue and Pleasure. The development of collections, both ISBN 978 0 7864 9513 9 (print); ISBN 978 1 4766 2361 0 private and in museums and galleries, is a (e-book) fascinating discourse, richly supported with £43.95 $39.95 examples. The eighteenth century was the time Available in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East when great collections such as the Louvre and and Africa from Eurospan the Hermitage came into being, as well as the Keywords Biography, Opera, Composers British Royal Academy. Considerable space is Review DOI 10.1108/RR-01-2017-0022 given to considering commissioning and changing attitudes to particular genres such as The aims of this book are laudable, to gather in water colours. Particularly illuminating is the one volume a record of all female composers discussion on the development of art criticism from 1,500 to the present day, grouped through journalism, especially in France. chronologically into eight time periods. The need to impose a moral order is Each entry gives a brief biography and a list of discussed in a well-documented analysis of the works and the principle source material. The way in which artists resolved the conflict of author notes, regretfully, that there is no choosing between virtue and pleasure. This discography, as so little of this music has been thoughtful survey shows how artists reacted to recorded. There is a full name A-Z index at the changing attitudes to such topics as depravity back, which is helpful for known names, and this and deprivation, as well as consumerism and confirms if a composer is also listed in the section luxury. The popularity of disguises and nudity for librettists. are examples of how artists incorporated such However, there seems to be confusion in the ideas into their work. order of the separate sections (time periods). Within these, composers are listed by nationality. At a time of external expansion, the work McVicker has used the nationality given in the looks beyond Europe by considering the source, which means that many are not where one colonial influence. This is reflected in the might expect because boundaries have changed. I popularity of portraying oriental themes and found it confusing to find England and Scotland, exotica in late eighteenth-century art. was unsure if there were any references to Wales Additional chapters on the art of Japan, China or Ireland (either North or South) and then felt and India are available via the companion this might have been easier if these women had website. The work is well illustrated with been afforded an all-UK designation, or whether several pages in colour. the country difference actually mattered. So, it The author has convinced us that might have been better to list composers within the eighteenth-century art is an exceptionally rich sections by surname or date of birth and then have field to explore both for its depiction of the indexes to cross check by nationality, for example. current concerns of the day and for the way in Many names are very obscure and have just which art was regarded and marketed. Her one work listed, but for completeness, this makes treatment is masterly. There is plenty to the books a useful source. Also, the confining of inform both the serious academic and the these composers to those who have written opera general interested layman in this is presumably of further use to scholars. It is ground-breaking treatise as the text is readable probably not hugely useful for the lay musician but and clear. For anyone with even a passing is useful for women composing a service by interest in the eighteenth century, this book drawing attention to the large number of women will both enlighten and inform. It is well who have contributed to musical composition in supported with an extremely comprehensive this way and who deserve to be recorded alongside list of references, both printed and online. their more famous male counterparts. Diana Dixon Stella Thebridge Freelance reviewer and Editor Local Studies Principal Librarian: Schools and Reading, Librarian, Oakham, UK Warwickshire Libraries, Warwick, UK

Journal

Reference Reviews – Emerald Publishing

Published: May 15, 2017

There are no references for this article.