British Women Composers and Instrumental Chamber Music in the Early Twentieth Century

Laura Seddon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317171331
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Música

This is the first full-length study of British women's instrumental chamber music in the early twentieth century. Laura Seddon argues that the Cobbett competitions, instigated by Walter Willson Cobbett in 1905, and the formation of the Society of Women Musicians in 1911 contributed to the explosion of instrumental music written by women in this period and highlighted women's place in British musical society in the years leading up to and during the First World War. Seddon investigates the relationship between Cobbett, the Society of Women Musicians and women composers themselves. The book's six case studies - of Adela Maddison (1866-1929), Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Morfydd Owen (1891-1918), Ethel Barns (1880-1948), Alice Verne-Bredt (1868-1958) and Susan Spain-Dunk (1880-1962) - offer valuable insight into the women's musical education and compositional careers. Seddon's discussion of their chamber works for differing instrumental combinations includes an exploration of formal procedures, an issue much discussed by contemporary sources. The individual composers' reactions to the debate instigated by the Society of Women Musicians, on the future of women's music, is considered in relation to their lives, careers and the chamber music itself. As the composers in this study were not a cohesive group, creatively or ideologically, the book draws on primary sources, as well as the writings of contemporary commentators, to assess the legacy of the chamber works produced.

Chapter 1
Contexts: The Lives of Women Composers

The early twentieth century witnessed immense change in British society, especially the emancipation of woman’s place within it. The death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the coronation of Edward VII ushered in a new era characterised by developing technology, a shifting class structure and social unrest. The British Empire, while diminishing, still included a quarter of the world’s population.1 1910 then marked a transition not only with the coronation of George V but the increasing disintegration of Liberalism, the rising intensity of the suffrage campaign, the issue of Irish home rule and strikes in a number of industries.2 As Historian Kate Caffrey notes, ‘For all its hindsight atmosphere of tranquil sunset glory, the Edwardian period was jumpy with disaster’.3 What aspects of society and politics, therefore, affected the lives of women musicians in general and more specifically women composers? This chapter considers the issues of generation, class, education, career and patronage, sexuality, marriage and motherhood, politics and war, and how they would have impacted on a woman in her development as a composer.

From birth, a woman musician’s generation, as defined below, along with her social and financial position, generally delineated her opportunities, including her education and freedom in her choice of personal relationships and career. In the latter, it even defined the level of professionalism to which she could aspire. Women actively composing in this period spanned three generations: roughly, women born before 1870, those born in approximately the next 20 years, and those born post-1890, many of whom were still students. As far as British composers were concerned the first generation included Ethel Smyth (1859–1944), Liza Lehmann (1862–1918), Dora Bright (1863–1951) and Adela Maddison (1866–1929); the second, Katherine Eggar (1874–1961), Marion Scott (1877–1953), Ethel Barns (1873–1948), Susan Spain-Dunk (1880–1962) and Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979); and the third, Morfydd Owen (1891– 1918) and Dorothy Howell (1898–1982).4

This last period provided the cradle for composers such as Freda Swain (1902–1985), Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983), Grace Williams (1906–1977) and Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994) whose careers not only flourished for the next half century but who have also enjoyed enthusiastic revivals of their music during their centenary years. It might be argued that these younger women benefited the most from the activities of the generations to be examined in this book.

The first generation described above was more likely to have studied privately or to have undertaken instrumental studies – but not composition – at the music conservatoires in London. Emanating from the aristocracy and upper-(middle)-classes, these women generally remained within these circles rather than moving in musical society. The second generation can be defined as the ‘political’ generation who, in the early twentieth century, were most active in setting up organisations such as the Society of Women Musicians (SWM), putting on concerts of women’s music and generally promoting women’s issues. Most received their musical education at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM), or the Royal College of Music (RCM), usually studying piano or violin as their first instrument, though some, such as Ethel Barns, also studied composition. The composers of the youngest generation were considerably freer than their predecessors, often living independently in London while studying. Composition tended to be their principal study, but they joined women’s societies less frequently.

Many of the women composers and musicians of the older generation were still chaperoned before marriage and were supervised continually; this is illustrated by the case of the singer Elsie Swinton (née Ebsworth, 1874–1966). David Greer recounts that she was born in Russia and came from a wealthy, but not aristocratic, background.5 She completed her education at a finishing school near St. Leonard’son-Sea on the south coast of England and by the age of 18 was living in London with her mother. Her activities were closely monitored, even to the extent of her reading materials being censored:

But it irked her that she was not allowed to go about freely on her own. These were still days of chaperonage, and while it was in order for her to walk alone near home, in the Sloane Street area, any expeditions further afield – to Piccadilly or Bond Street – required the attendance of her maid, Miss Richardson.6

The youngest generation can be seen to have considerably more freedom even while still students in London. Even though Dorothy Howell was from a conservative Catholic family from Birmingham and lodged at a Catholic boarding house during her studies at the RAM, she was allowed to take trains by herself: ‘having carefully selected a carriage containing two females I steamed back safely to Harrow.’7 It was necessary, however, for Richard (Dick) Sampson, the brother of her sister’s fiancé, to escort her to dinners and concerts in the evenings. Equally, the pianist Myra Hess (1890–1965), who was from a Jewish family and was brought up in a middle-class home in St John’s Wood, was allowed to travel back and forth from the Academy in the company of her friend, Irene Scharrer, and was able to socialise with friends, without supervision.8

As discussed in the introduction, there was not a single experience of being a ‘woman’. The class structure was one of the main factors to influence how both men and women were expected to function in society, but it affected their lives very differently. This research focuses on the educated and/or generally more wealthy, who inhabited the ‘middle’ and ‘upper’ classes, as the women composers under discussion came primarily from these levels of society. How a woman composer was treated very much depended on her socio-economic background. As discussed earlier with regard to geographic background, the women composers focused on in chapters 4 and 5 came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds within the middle and upper-middle classes. Adela Maddison and Ethel Smyth both came from families with military backgrounds and as composers they moved in aristocratic/bohemian social circles. Ethel Barns’s father was a zinc merchant and then owned an iron foundry in Holloway, while Susan Spain-Dunk’s father was listed as a builder on her RAM student record.9 Morfydd Owen’s family were shopkeepers and Alice Verne-Bredt came from a family of German immigrants who were professional musicians/teachers.10

While the lifestyles of those in different classes varied considerably, class-structure was apparently less rigid than in the Victorian era and it was possible to elevate yourself with money. ‘[T]he uppermost class, characterised by its wealth, status and above all political power, was an amalgam of top business and professional men and the landed aristocracy.’11 Indeed, A.N. Wilson argues, ‘Money was not merely important in Edwardian England, it was paramount. Lord Bryce, British ambassador to the United States from 1907 to 1912, believed Britain was more money-obsessed than America, and in that sense less class-bound’.12 Yet this mobility was still not as easily obtainable for wealthy independent women as for men.

Women from the more privileged parts of society found some greater independence and even, occasionally, entry into higher education. Women could take degrees at provincial universities but, despite having women-only colleges, Oxford did not allow women to take degrees until 1919 and Cambridge not until after the Second World War.13 Women’s entry into the professions depended greatly on whether they were responsible for their household: ‘It is perhaps less commonly recognised that running an upper-middle-class household could also prove most difficult and time consuming. For, although servants were there to save housewives from unladylike drudgery, they were unable to relieve them of the burden of overall responsibility.’14

In reality, women who did not have to work for a living and had limited domestic responsibilities had vast amounts of time to fill but considerable restrictions on acceptable activities. Even in c. 1905, a correspondent in the women’s magazine, The Lady’s Realm, describes the boredom imposed on her:

I do a lot of fancy work and read a number of library books; but even these delights are apt to cloy upon over indulgence in them. Sometimes I am tempted to envy girls I see going off on their bicycles to golf or hockey; or the others who write books, lecture, and earn their living in some way or another. At least they do not endure continually the half-contemptuous pity of their relatives; they do not feel themselves to be hopeless failures.15

By the end of the nineteenth century, given the fact that musical education for women was increasingly established at public institutions, piano teaching as an industry flourished. The start of a woman composer’s musical education was very often the private piano lesson. The industry provided a very necessary income for unmarried women, though the repertoire was mainly ‘salon’ music and the teaching quality was sometimes poor. As one young lady put it, ‘The arch-crime cannot be laid at the door of any unfortunate individual old m...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Music Examples
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Contexts: The Lives of Women Composers
• 2 Women and Chamber Music
• 3 The Society of Women Musicians
• 4 The Other Side of London’s Musical Society: Adela Maddison, Ethel Smyth and Morfydd Owen
• 5 The Early Twentieth-Century Phantasy
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1 List of People Mentioned in the Text
• Appendix 2 SWM Members 1911–1920
• Appendix 3 Extracts from Katherine Eggar, Address to the SWM Inaugural Meeting, Saturday 15 July 1911, SWM Archive, RCM
• Appendix 4 Male Associates of the SWM 1911–1920
• Appendix 5 Instrumental Chamber Music (Trios, Quartets, Quintets, Sextets) by Women Composers c.1905–1920
• Appendix 6 Catalogue of Phantasies Written/Published between 1905 and 1920
• Appendix 7 Judging Panel for 1914–1915 Cobbett Competition
• Bibliography
• Index