Five lives in music : women performers, composers, and impresarios from the Baroque to the present

Cecelia Hopkins Porter

Representing a historical cross-section of performance and training in Western music since the seventeenth century, this publication brings to light the private and performance lives of five women musicians and composers. Guiding readers through the thirty years war in central Europe, elite courts in Germany, urban salons in Paris, nazi control of Germany and Austria, and American musical life today, as well as personal experiences of marriage, motherhood, and widowhood, the author provides insights into the culture in which each woman was active: duchess Sophie-Elisabeth of Braunschweig-Lueneberg (harpsichordist), Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre (composer), Josephine Lang (pianist and composer), baroness Maria Bach (composer and pianist), Ann Schein (pianist). Mining musical autographs, unpublished letters and press reviews, interviews, and music archives in the United States and Europe, the author probes each musician's social and economic status, her education and musical training, the cultural expectations within the traditions and restrictions of each woman's society, and other factors.. - Portretten van vijf vrouwelijke musici en componisten van de Barok tot heden.