The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers

Exploring a diverse, distinguished repertoire, and transcending the rhetoric of neglect, this book transforms understanding of women composers.

Transcending narratives of female suppression, this Companion traces women's innovative and critical contributions to musical culture in diverse times, places, and contexts from medieval to modern times. A thematically organised exploration of a rich, re-emerging repertoire, it will be essential reading for students of music history.Moving beyond narratives of female suppression, and exploring the critical potential of a diverse, distinguished repertoire, this Companion transforms received understanding of women composers. Organised thematically, and ranging beyond elite, Western genres, it explores the work of diverse female composers from medieval to modern times, besides the familiar headline names. The book's prologue traces the development of scholarship on women composers over the past five decades and the category of 'woman composer' itself. The chapters that follow reveal scenes of flourishing creativity, technical innovation, and (often fleeting) recognition, challenging long-held notions around invisibility and neglect and dismissing clichés about women composers and their work. Leading scholars trace shifting ideas about composers and compositional processes, contributing to a wider understanding of how composers have functioned in history and making this volume essential reading for all students of musical history. In an epilogue, three contemporary composers reflect on their careers and identities.