Throughout classical music history, women were typically discouraged from developing their talents to become professional pianists. Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, and Maria Anna Mozart are amazing women in history. Most importantly, they lived and breathed the challenges and accomplishments of women in music from the 1700s to present day. These women were trailblazers who, in addition to being extraordinarily talented, contended with and helped upend the gendered conventions that governed their place in music. This article outlines the struggles these trailblazing musicians endured while cracking the audiovisual glass ceiling and creating a path for the young stars of today.
Presenting their case, solitarily in this world of our own contrivances, Fanny Mendelssohn, a wildly talented composer and pianist. Her father decisively crushed her hopes of a professional career. He demanded that music only serve as an ornament to her life. Even with discouragement around every corner, Mendelssohn proved to be a prodigious talent. At 14 she was already capable of playing all of Bach’s preludes and fugues by heart. By 15, her performing career was pretty much over. She hosted private “Sunday afternoon” concerts in her home. This infrastructure covered her costs so that she could play her music to a handpicked audience.
The Trailblazers of Their Time
Clara Schumann proved to be yet another important chapter in our story of women pianists. At only nine years old, she caused a stir with her dramatic debut as a concert pianist. During her teen years, she dazzled audiences across the country, frequenting public recitals and concerts. Schumann’s labor, genius, and will made her an unstoppable force in the art world. After her husband got sick and she had to pivot her livelihood to provide for her family, she proved her strength in an unforgiving world.
Maria Anna Mozart, called Nannerl, had garnered rapturous acclaim on her family’s meteoric European tour. Besides being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s elder sister, she was a noted pianist in her own right. No matter how brilliant, Nannerl’s accomplishments were overshadowed by that of her brother. Though she never wavered from her love of the piano in her lifetime, patriarchal structures prevented her from receiving the acclaim she deserved.
“Music may perhaps one day be [Felix’s] profession, but for you it can and should only ever be an embellishment.” – Fanny Mendelssohn’s father
The Struggles of Recognition
Women musicians in the 18th and 19th centuries were usually limited to private lessons and even prevented from performing in public. This unfortunate trend served to whittle down the opportunities that were afforded to skilled musicians. Even as they were winning in private, they had an incredibly hard time ever getting their victories acknowledged.
In more recent history, the legendary artist and activist Nina Simone had to deal with these issues. She had studied at the Juilliard School of Music in the early 1950s. Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music was considered the preeminent music school at the time, but they turned her down. Simone felt strongly that racial prejudice played a large role in this rejection. She called attention to the systemic hurdles for women of color in the arts still today.
Even so, several creative and determined women found ways to break through these barriers. Arabella Goddard made a living through her performances, touring all over the world as far as Hong Kong and Australia in the 1870s. Susan Tomes put together biographies of 50 women pianists in her book Women And The Piano. In doing so, she uncovers countless examples of women who needed to mask their abilities due to social pressures.
The Evolution of Women in Music
The reality for women musicians has historically been a very different picture, one that has changed drastically in recent decades. Today, artists like Yuja Wang have received much of the art form’s highest accolades for their brilliant acrobatics on tough repertoire. Wang continues to break stereotypes and fight for equality in the music industry through her artistry.
“If I’m going to get naked with my music, I may as well be comfortable while I’m at it.” – Yuja Wang
This sentiment shows the greater development at play—the move to see women’s efforts on par with that of men. In her experience, audiences today are more egalitarian in their judgments of women on stage as artists and musicians, according to renowned contemporary pianist Sonya Lifschitz. She notes that women’s access to opportunity continues to be shaped by their cultural backgrounds.
“Females that come from different cultural backgrounds have to work twice as hard to access the opportunities they want to have.” – Sonya Lifschitz
Lifschitz elaborates on why female musicians face so many obstacles. These barriers are a product of social and cultural constructs, rather than any void in talent or capacity.
“[The barriers] were more of a social and cultural constructs.” – Sonya Lifschitz
