About the Book
The forty composers included in Volume 7 of "Women Composers: Music Through the Ages: Vocal Music" were born between 1800 and 1899. Some are also represented in the series Volume 6 (Keyboard Music) and Volume 8 (Large and Small Instrumental Ensembles). These works, for solo voice and piano, for voice and instruments, and scenes from three operas, are by women from nine countries: Twelve from the United States (Bauer, Beach, Freer, Hier, Jessye, M.R. Lang, Moore, Price, Rogers, Salter, Strickland and Urner) Nine from France (L. Boulanger, N. Boulanger, Grandval, Heritte-Viardot, Malibran, Puget, Viardot, Vieu and White) Six from England (Allitsen, Carmichael, Clarke, del Riego, Lehmann and Prescott); six from Germany (Bronsart, Hensel, Kinkel, J. Lang, Schumann and Teichmuller) Three from the Netherlands (Cramer, Dijk and Rennes) One each from Austria (Mahler), Canada (Harrison), Italy (Giuranna) and Ireland (Maddison)Those who were of musical families include the sisters Lili and Nadia Boulanger; sisters Maria Malibran (de Beriot) and Pauline Viardot, and Pauline's daughter Louise Heritte-Viardot; Eleanor Everest Freer, Barbara Giuranna, Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn), Josephine Lang, Margaret Ruthven Lang, Liza Lehmann, Alma Mahler, Loಧ sa Puget, Clara Kathleen Rogers, Mary Turner Salter, and Clara Schumann. Previously unpublished music in the volume includes Lili Boulanger's choral music, the opera scenes of Barbara Giuranna, and the songs of Catherine Urner. Two African-American composers are included: Eva A. Jessye and Florence Price.
This volume contains examples of music in the many styles also practiced by their male contemporaries: the simple French romance (Malibran, Puget, Vieu); the German lied (Bronsart, Hensel, Josephine Lang, Schumann, Teichmuller); music from the Second New England School (Rogers); and music espousing Romanticism (Beach) and post-Romanticism (Cramer). There is impressionistic music (Bauer, the Boulangers, M.R. Lang, Maddison); models of the American Art Song (Bauer, Price, Urner), dialect songs (Hier, Strickland); religious and patriotic songs (Allitsen, Dijk), opera (Giuranna, Grandval, Moore), and musical comedy (Lehmann). Some of these songs became best sellers because famous singers of the 19th and 20th centuries promoted them in performance.
