Let us stop the historical exclusion of women – Liberation
Can you cite the name of a composer, who is not Clara Schumann and whose work you have already heard, in recording or in concert? Difficult, isn’t it? And yet … Women have always made music but reading history manuals, given the concert and radio programming, we could doubt it – except for a few notable exceptions « Under condition ». To talk about the composers, we often mention as a priority the figure of the « prevented woman », « sisters of » or « women of », like Fanny Mendelssohn, who was to deal under the name of her brother, or Alma Mahler, that her husband Gustav pushed to give up composition. But it is little told the obstacles encountered by Rebecca Clarke, forced to present his works under a male pseudonym, or suspected in the press of « Do not exist » When his Alto Sonata was distinguished during a competition.
Finally, what about other composers, such as Louise Farrenc or Augusta Holmès who have known the glory during their lifetime Before sinking into oblivion. Apart from the singers – a separate category – instrumentalists have been marginalized so long. Access to the orchestras was prohibited until the establishment of screen for recruitment hearings. Admittedly, the transition to the posterity of musicians is a complex phenomenon, but with women, there is something other than the passage of time and an inevitable forgetfulness. As the treatment granted by historiography shows, the phenomenon of invisibilization has not been the result of chance, but the reflection of a system which excluded women from the dominant musical narrative, of the « canon ».
To repair the past is to recover half of our musical family tree. It is not a question of erasing Beethoven or of no longer making Mozart or Ravel heard, but rather to expand our horizon. It is to give voice to the composers and composers excluded from the musical cannon because of their gender and their origin, to make their works heard regularly in concert and on the waves. More than ever, the world of classical music must get out of its ivory tower and do its share in the city. In 2025 again, festivals in France offer 100 % male programming with impunity, while they benefit from public funding and business patronage that says they are committed to promoting diversity and diversity. Continue to program only male composers with male performers, it is actively perpetuating the idea that the composers never existed or that they were lower in talent and that the musicians still have no place.
The world of classical music often resists these debates, brandishing talent, genius. In the name of « meritocracy », I myself have long issued reservations. However, what was my surprise to learn until 1903, Théodore Dubois, the director of the Paris conservatory, had not hesitated to establish quotas to deal with « Progressive invasion by students women » ropes classes? Quotas to limit the number of women! The world of music has done it. Perhaps he will be able to get used to the idea of conditioning the allocation of funding to the real presence of diversity and diversity in programming and thus-finally-give a fair place to the others?
