Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why are you doing
this? Is it not obvious that the best compositions are the ones that
survived and no longer have to be discovered?
A: The formation of the musical canon is a complex issue - and it
was not always there. In the 18th century, practically all music was
"modern music" but by the early 19th century the narrative of a
singular genius as the composer started to emerge. Establishing some
composers as the great masters was a multi-faceted process that not
only included the quality or popularity of his (usually not her)
works but also the societal need for national figures, politics,
pure chance, lobbying and personal preferences of critics and
historians. At the society we feel that the assignment of a composer
into the classical music canon is not an automatic guarantee of the
quality of his works, nor of the inferiority of the works of others.
We try to assess each work by its own merits and not based on the
person who composed it.
Q: Why are you
concentrating on female composers? Is this not biased?
A: While there are lots of male composers, whose music we would like
to have performed more often (for example, Rued Langgaard, Alfredo
Casella, etc.), the dampening of the voices of female composers was
much more systematic - not necessary silencing but dampening.
Throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century there were written
and unwritten rules about the inferiority of women when it came to
harmonic thinking, and it was deemed unsuitable for women to compose
symphonies and string quartets that "required the most analytical
thought". Songs and small-scale piano works were considered more
suitable. Because of this, we concentrate on the large-scale works
to bring the female composers also visible and heard by
providing the principal works of a concert - a spot mostly reserved
for male composers of the classical canon. In addition, the output
of female composers remained low because of their inability to
concentrate full-time on their work. Due to all this, we're
essentially missing 45-50 % of all classical music that we could
have now, if the women had been given the means to cherish and
advance their profession similarly to men. In the future, once we've
covered the important works by women, we are more than willing to
take on also dismissed male composers.