Women Composers in New Editions

These publications span the decade between 1988 and 1997, the very time when research on women musicians has emerged as an important area in musicology. All of these editions are currently available, with the volume of Ruth Crawford's music in a second edition.

[For a current list of Recent Researches editions of music by women composers, see the index.]

Amy Beach
Quartet for Strings (in One Movement), Opus 89
Edited by Adrienne Fried Block
A 23/MUSA 3

Recognized as America's leading woman composer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Amy Beach (1867-1944) belonged to the Second New England School of composers. Her one-movement quartet, a lean yet lyrical work of great originality, incorporates Alaskan Inuit melodies as thematic material. Completed in 1929, the quartet was one of Beach's few unpublished works. This edition, which includes a facsimile of the 1921 draft score, makes the work available for the first time.

Ruth Crawford
Music for Small Orchestra (1926); Suite No. 2 for Four Strings and Piano (1929)
Edited by Judith Tick and Wayne Schneider
A 19/MUSA 1

By the late 1920s, before composing her landmark String Quartet 1931, Ruth Crawford (1901-53) had already found a strong and individual voice as an American modernist. This edition presents two important unpublished compositions from that period: Music for Small Orchestra (1926) and Suite No. 2 for Four Strings and Piano (1929).

Fanny Hensel
Songs for Pianoforte, 1836-1837
Edited by Camilla Cai
N 22

These piano pieces were composed by Fanny Hensel (1805-47) when she was in her early thirties, and she planned to publish 10 of these 11 pieces as a unified set. Only one of those pieces was published during Hensel's lifetime. The remaining 10, based on the autograph manuscripts, are published here for the first time.

Isabella Leonarda
Selected Compositions
Edited by Stewart Carter
B 59

Although Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) wrote more music than other woman of the Baroque era, only one of her nearly 200 extant compositions has previously appeared in a modern edition. This volume reveals Leonarda's highly expressive style and offers a representative sampling of her works in various genres.

Marianna von Martines
Dixit Dominus
Edited by Irving Godt
C 48

Marianna von Martines (1744-1812) was highly regarded in her day. She studied with Haydn, Bonno, and Porpora and, under the sponsorship of the renowned Padre Martini, became the first woman to be elected in any capacity to the Accademia Filarmonica Honorata. She composed the "Dixit Dominus" (1774) as her contribution in response to her election. This publication is the first critical edition of the "Dixit Dominus," and the introduction by Irving Godt includes transcriptions of letters between Martines and Martini that deal with this work.

Maddalena Laura Lombardini Sirmen
Three Violin Concertos
Edited by Jane L. Berdes
C 38

Maddalena Laura Sirmen (1745-1818) was the single renowned product of those Venetian conservatories devoted exclusively to educating women as musicians to have become internationally famous as a composer. All of the pieces were published widely in England, France, and the Netherlands--some in as many as five editions. The Violin Concertos are rare examples of the mature classical style in Venice during the late 1760s.

Barbara Strozzi
Cantate, ariete a una, due e tre voci, Opus 3
Edited by Gail Archer
B 83

Cantate, ariette a una, due e tre voci, a collection of eleven secular cantatas, was first published by the Venetian printer Gardano in 1654. Barbara Strozzi, the daughter of the distinguished Venetian playwright Giulio Strozzi, published at her own expense seven volumes of secular works and one sacred volume, containing more than one hundred works; better known male contemporaries, such as Giacomo Carissimi and Luigi Rossi, published only a small fraction of their output. A virtuoso lutenist and singer, Strozzi probably performed her pieces in her home at meetings of the Accademia degli Incogniti. Members of this group, including her father and Giovanni Francesco Loredano, supplied librettos to all of the major opera composers in seventeenth-century Venice and also contributed texts to Strozzi's cantatas.

Barbara Strozzi, Cantate, Ariete a una, due, e tre voci, opera terza (Venice: Gardano, 1654), opening of "Begli occhi," page 40 (courtesy of British Library, London), and the same page as engraved in A-R's publication.