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04 September 2019

A Woman Composer and Her Creations.

It is a Lecture I presented at the Somextro Composers Forum at the University of Falmouth in England.


Not long ago, I happened to read a rather long and unusual post by a world famous concert pianist. He was talking about Tschaikovsky and his music. This world famous artist and pianist was forcibly arguing that the composer’s sexual orientation, his homosexuality in this case, was more that obvious in his music. Yes. You heard me. That is exactly what he asserted.

This international artist, whom I will not name here, went even further, stating that there were a number of contemporary composers of his personal acquaintance whose music could easily reveal their presumed ‘pedophilia’. I remember him naming one or two as examples for his assertions, but I can’t…and refuse to remember their names. I was a little too shocked at the point being made, if it was a point at all.

I decided to reread the post to just make sure my eyes weren’t betraying me. They were not. The words used by the pianist were more than clear, perhaps even far too clear to be mistaken.

How, I asked myself, can one detect ‘homosexuality’ in someone’s music, let alone pedophilia? Is it possible?

Have we gone from Descartes’ reduction of music to conceptual clarity and mathematical equations, to gender distinction in the musical medium?

I mean, mathematics underlies everything, music included, and however much I don’t really take to the idea of describing music simply as ratios, analogies and frequencies, I am forced to accept that it is so. Music is spanned in terms of time, and the frequencies are measured in waves. Mathematics. Pure and simple.

But music cannot possibly convey gender, can it? Let alone criminal behavior the likes of pedophilia.

As I mentioned before, mathematical equations I can bring myself to consider when debating about the essence of music, however reluctantly I may do so, but gender distinction? No. That notion I simply refuse to absorb or accept.

So, what can one say, or in this case what will the concert pianist I was referring to, say about ‘MY’ music?

I am a woman, yes, there’s no denying that, is there? Like Jessica Rabbit, I can say that it’s not my fault I look the way I do, someone just drew me like this.

But apart from the joke, however hard I try to disguise myself, my femininity will always be obvious in the visual sphere.

And will my femininity be just as obvious in my musical creations? And if it is, in what manner is it audible? Do women compose ‘differently’ when compared to men? Many men in the field of composition would agree with this assertion hands down. And they would even bring their own hard evidence to support the claim that women are more ‘emotional’ composers. Less architectural, even less innovative.

They are debatable assertions, of course. There may be some seed of truth in them, or there may not. It remains to be seen and studied.

But how on earth did this well-known concert pianist, detect Tschaikovsky’s homosexuality in his music? Through which musical artifice?

Through analysis of harmony? Musical Form? Dynamics? Phrasing? Melody? Where and how is a composer’s gender identifiable?

And if aforementioned concert pianist set himself to the task, would he be able to determine my femininity in my compositions with just as much accuracy and conviction? So, affected by a sudden virulent syndrome of the Socratic kind, I ventured to tackle him on the point he was making. I asked him the fatidic ‘how’, fully expecting a heated debate of no small duration. The gentleman gave me no such satisfaction. He deprived me entirely of the pleasure (or aggravation more likely) of a debate, giving me an entirely different and abstract reply that had nothing to do with the initial topic he himself had introduced.

I cannot even begin to describe how frustrated I was of course, and made repeated efforts to draw the man in, to make my sentiments known...but nothing could be done. The maestro just wouldn’t budge.

But you see, his curious post did not go unnoticed. It had left its mark in mind. It got me thinking about myself, my music, my being a woman. A female composer.

There are many other women composers in the world, I can assure you. Far more than one can imagine. I don’t know just how representative I am of them all, as I speak. For however much we are women composers, the variables of subjectivity applies to us also. We can be very different composers one from another, very different artists and musicians belonging to the same gender.

It happens to men also, from what I’ve heard.

I would like to approach my topic from another angle now: Music, according to my humble opinion, is all about emotional communication. It’s a sensuous medium, in that it pertains to the senses. It goes in through our ears, but it doesn’t tell us an accurate story. It doesn’t make assertions. It is not intellectually definite; it is not conveying a precise concept. Descartes’ said otherwise in his Compendium Musicae, but I never did wholly agree with him. My point of view on music is more in conformity with Jung’s, Hegel’s or Goethe’s. I prefer to listen to and audibly enjoy a musical masterpiece in its Ontological Splendor, not in its numeric ratios.

As Hegel asserts: The principal aim of art is not, therefore, to imitate nature, to decorate our surroundings, to prompt us to engage in moral or political action, or to shock us out of our complacency. It is to allow us to contemplate and enjoy created images of our own spiritual freedom—images that are beautiful precisely because they give expression to our freedom. Art's purpose, in other words, is to enable us to bring to mind the truth about ourselves, and so to become aware of whom we truly are. Art is there not just for art's sake, but for beauty's sake, that is, for the sake of a distinctively sensuous form of human self-expression and self-understanding.

So, when I compose, am I making a statement about myself? Is my being a lady traceable in my music? And if it is, how can anyone detect it?

The best way to obtain proof of this is by having a good number of music lovers, and not necessarily experts, listen to music of various contemporary classical music composers, including mine of course, without them knowing who we are, where we come from, what our gender is.

They will be given a questionnaire to fill in, which will require them to guess at the gender of the composer of each musical composition they will hear.

The central question will be: Is the composer a man? A woman? A homosexual? A transexual? Perhaps they may need to listen to the musical compositions twice, if not three times, or even more.

It truly tickles my curiosity to know what the result of such an experiment would be.

Of one thing I am absolutely certain: many of the listeners in the experiment would protest loudly, saying that not only are they NOT adept in the musical genre, but that they are certainly not clairvoyants either.

But one thing they most certainly would tell you with ease: which piece of music they enjoyed the most.

On being asked why they chose a particular composition rather than another as their favorite, some wouldn’t even know what to answer. A lot of them would try to prove that they are knowledgeable by attempting to use scholarly vocabulary to express their sensations. Others would just say: I liked it. No particular reason.

And some others would say, as is often the case, that they found the composition ‘relaxing’. Any of you ever heard that one before? I have.

Music isn’t Valerian. It’s all about ART.

The Classical Music world (the word ‘classical’ is an arbitrary definition of the bulk and complexity of this musical word) is literally brimming over with artistic masterpieces.

Contrary however to the masterpieces of visual art, that, unless stolen or hidden, are always available and accessible to our vision, music, in order to be heard, must be continually revived from a sort of two-dimensional hibernation. The great musical masterpieces need to be resuscitated, revived from paper.

Music is evanescent, unseen, untouched, and inexistent until the human factor enters the equation, and music can be brought back to life from the black and white scribbles on the pentagram, or from various symbols particular to culture or historical period. It needs to be brought back in repeated acoustic resurrections, which vary each time according to the interpreter or performer. Otherwise we just won’t get to hear it. And each musician implements something of his/her own, which equates to the fact that a musical masterpiece is never heard in the same manner twice.

Michelangelo’s David is fixed and permanent in its beauty. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, another gem of art, will never be played in the same way by any one musician. And if in the end there are no musicians to play it, whether human or artificial, it will be consigned to oblivion.

So, music is a complex art after all, fluid and changeful, an art that needs a number of agents to breathe life into it. While it is on stone, Pergamum or paper, it is in slumber, silent, awaiting a musician, singer or performer to read it and bring it back to life.

I am a musician and composer, an organizer of sound. In this guise I write this blog.

I’m a woman composer, yes. I’m also a happy mother, a teacher, a mentor a friend, a housekeeper and cook. I have a full and busy day, as many other women like me.

The time necessary for composing I try to gather with a metaphorical spoon. It’s not easy. Composing is a demanding task.

I have often burnt my daughters’ lunch because of a sudden idea for a composition I had left unfinished, result of that usual and often inevitable annoyance which goes by the name of writer’s block. It afflicts us all at some point of our creative endeavors, doesn’t it?

Allow me an example.

One day, while stirring the day’s minestrone for lunch, a musical damn that had been lying listless and half empty in my mind, filled up all of a sudden and burst unannounced inside my head. I couldn’t let this creative estrus go unmined. There was a second movement for a string quartet that had been left half way waiting. I had no choice but to jot the musical idea down before forgetting it, so I immediately abandoned the spoon and took to the piano, apron and all, leaving the minestrone on the stove.

Regretfully, minestrones on a lively gas stove tend to not obey the laws of musical inspiration. They usually burn angrily while erratic lady composers write the fresh notes on their music notation software.

And the smell was…awful.

This kind of daily episode is quite emblematic of me and my daily life, and the task of combining the writing of music with my daily chores. Not the happiest of combinations, but inevitable. Routine isn’t on very friendly terms with musical inspiration. I often wish I had the luxury of closing myself away in an Alpine Chalet, or escaping to a pacific island, so as to enjoy the luxury of composing all day. Who wouldn’t? I just need to have the financial aspect of my life indefinitely resolved.

So, to return to the reason for which I am here: my music. And I hope that by now you will be curious enough to want to listen to it.

I believe music should speak for itself. It should stand on its own. But does music actually ‘speak’? No. It won’t say anything in particular to anyone of you. But it may say everything to anyone of you, in the manner of your own choice. You will lend it your soul, your thoughts, your emotions. You can invent images, or cast your own memories to it.

You ‘associate’ yourself to music; you ‘absorb’ it through your ears. You may be highly intent in listening, as you may be distracted, and in doing so, consigning music to the mere role of background support.

But it will, in one way or another, touch you. It will either caress you or slap you. It will soothe you or invigorate you. It may even bore you or make you despondent.

It often makes you smile, and even more often, tearful.

The tenuous art of stirring emotions music is. Tenuous in nature, but not in scope and effect.

And my music? How will it tackle your emotional spectrum?

And will the knowledge that the composer of the music you are hearing is a woman compromise your auditory experience? Will it add to the fascination of the musical piece, or will it take something away from it?

Has Tschaikovsky suddenly become less attractive now that you know he is a homosexual? Does it really make any difference in the auditory experience?

To answer that question ‘objectively’, one must listen to music without knowing who the creator is. As simple as that.

If the music is pleasing to you, then the gender of the composer should make no difference. If it is not of your taste, the gender of the composer shouldn’t make any difference either.

Am I right?

But who knows. In this world of infinite possibilities, a brilliant rhetor may rise up and academically overthrow everything I have asserted until now, nulling my hard work.

But until that happens, just reflect on what I have written.

For a little while.


 

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