by Deborah Hayes
published in the ILWC Journal, February 1995.
What was life like for a woman musician in Europe 200, 300, 400 years ago? Women performed music in city concert rooms and country houses. They taught students including royalty and aristocracy. They led salons and organized other gatherings of professional and amateur musicians. They wrote music for many kinds of performance situations, they published some of it, and they saved some of it in manuscript. Some of it was carefully preserved by family and collectors and admirers over the centuries. Much of it must be presumed lost. We feel a kinship with these historical women for their commitment to music and their devotion to the musical life and to new ideas, new music, new performance possibilities.
In the scarcely over ten years of its existence, ClarNan Editions, the desk-top publishing company founded and headed by the American musicologist Barbara Garvey Jackson, has brought us new editions of historic music composed by seventeen women, all but one of them European women in the 16th through the early 19th centuries. Dr. Jackson explains that she devised the name ClarNan by combining the names of three historic figures, Clara Schumann, Nannerl Mozart, and Nannette Streicher, nee Stein (Beethoven's favorite piano-builder), who, taken as a group, pursued most of the principal musical occupations--performance, composition, instrument-building, editing, and teaching. These three women "seemed to be appropriate patron saints for a new publishing venture!"
ClarNan editions, most of them edited by Jackson herself, are newly typeset in computer-printed music calligraphy. Introductory material to each volume clearly explains editorial policy. Editorial additions and changes to the music are designated in square brackets in the music itself or listed separately at the beginning of the volume. Introductory material also includes biographical and historical information about the composer and her times, a list of manuscript and published editions and their locations, English translations of texts, and a bibliography of current research about the composer. ClarNan editions are generally published in score with separate part books, thus providing a modern study score for works that were originally published only in parts.
I first heard of Barbara Garvey Jackson as Barbara Seagrave, author of a landmark dissertation on French baroque music, specifically violin "tutors" or method books and what they tell us about baroque performance practices in general. In the 1960s I was a doctoral student at Stanford University and our professor, the baroque music specialist Putnam Aldrich, repeatedly referred us to "Barbara Seagrave's dissertation."
Several years later, in the mid-1970s, when I began to search for scores and recordings of historic music by women, Barbara Garvey Jackson at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville seemed to have access to a wealth of information. She could name the oratorio by Maria Grimani from which the "Sinfonia" (1713) on the New England Women's Symphony recording was taken, though the liner notes did not. (Her manuscript score of this Sinfonia with an introduction to the composer and her times were published in James Briscoe's Historical Anthology of Music by Women in 1987.)
In the 1980s Barbara Jackson organized, and helped procure funding for, the Leonarda Productions recording of the Missa prima (1696) of Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) for vocal soloists, chorus, organ, and strings; performers were her colleagues and students, her friends in Fayetteville. When she sent me, at my request, her handwritten score of the work with her realization of the continuo part and other editorial additions, it had the unmistakable look of the work of a Putnam Aldrich student. It gradually dawned on me who this person might be. "Are you Barbara Seagrave?" I asked in my next letter.
In 1984 the first ClarNan editions appeared. The Missa prima score is number CN 1 in the ClarNan catalog. CN 2 is the same composer's motet Quam dulcis es (1687) for solo voice with violins and organ continuo. CN 3, CN 4 (both 1984) and CN 5 (1987) are works by Camilla Rossi who worked in Vienna in the early 18th century: the secular cantata Dori e Fileno for soprano, alto, and strings, and two oratorios for soloists, instruments, and continuo, Il Sacrifizio di Abramo (1708) and S. Beatrice d'Este (1707). Though Dr. Jackson originally planned to publish three or four volumes each year as she did in 1984, the average has been about two a year, or 21 volumes in 11 years. This is an amazingly large number, considering the standards she has upheld of reliability, breadth and depth of scholarship, accessibility, and convenience to performers. Moreover, she has continued to publish these editions while preparing her monumental catalog 'Say Can You Deny Me': A Guide to Surviving Music by Women from the 16th through the 18th Centuries.
In 1987 ClarNan began publishing a series of volumes of arias from 18th-century Italian oratorios; the four volumes published so far contain arias by two contemporaries of Rossi in Vienna, Catterina Benedetta Grazianini and Maria Grimani. I remember my surprise at finding these three women described in New Grove as "the last of a long line" of women composers of oratorios in Vienna. This was the first time I had seen mention of a long line of women composers of anything! Now we have the oratorios themselves ready for new performance.
In 1987 ClarNan also began a series of 18th-century Classic Lieder and other songs, by Helene Liebmann, nee Riese (1796-after 1819), Corona Schroter (1751-1802) of Weimar, Sophia Westenholz, nee Fritscher (1759-1838) of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Maria Cosway (1759-1838), the Paris salonnière Ann-Louise Brillon de Jouy, nee Boyvin d'Hardancourt (1744-1824), and the Viennese pianist and composer Maria Theresia von Paradis (1759-1824).
With this series Jackson began publishing works prepared by other researchers. Hidemi Matsushita's preface to the volume of Zwolf Lieder (1784-86) by von Paradis, which includes a detailed eight-page biography of the composer, is a major research source in itself, in keeping with the ClarNan tradition. He also edited ClarNan's scores of von Paradis's ballad Lenore (1789) for voice and piano, and the overture to the opera Der Schulkandidat (1792). Thanks to Dr. Matsushita, who teaches at Metropolitan State College of Denver, the overture to Der Schulkandidat was performed on his campus and then in late 1994 in San Francisco by the Women's Philharmonic.
In 1993 ClarNan began publishing music by a 20th-century composer, Florence Price (1887-1953), the first African-American women composer to win national recognition. Her No. 1 for Organ, edited by Calvert Johnson of Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia, himself an organist, appeared in 1993. Dr. Johnson's extensive and thoroughly researched introductory material includes a biography of Price, lists of specifications of many of the organs she played or is thought to have played, and expert suggestions for registration of this sonata. He also includes a biographical essay by another leading Price scholar, Dr. Rae Linda Brown. Four ClarNan volumes feature instrumental music of the Classic era by two English women, Ann Valentine (1762-1845) and Cecilia Maria Barthelemon (ca. 1770-after 1834), and two French women of the ancien régime, Mme Clery, nee Duverge (1761-after 1791), a harpist in the court of Marie-Antoinette, and Ann-Louise Brillon du Jouy. The English pieces, published in London in the 1780s and 1790s and edited for ClarNan by Calvert Johnson, are sonatas with instrumental accompaniment, or "accompanied sonatas," a favorite genre for the amateur market. Keyboard instruments and harps were customarily women's instruments, though not exclusively. The accompanying instruments, violin, flute, cello, were customarily men's instruments.
Miss Valentine's Ten Sonatas for the Piano Forte or Harpsichord With an Accompaniment for the Violin or German-Flute, Opus 1, is a recent ClarNan title published in 1994. The Barthelemon volume contains four sonatas: Opus 1, no. 2, for piano forte or harpsichord and violin; Opus 2, no. 1, for keyboard with violin and cello; Opus 2, no. 2, for keyboard with flute and cello; and Opus 4 for keyboard and violin. Barthelemon's sonata opus 1, no. 2 (1786) was originally published in score; presumably the violinist would be reading over the harpsichordist's shoulder.
Valentine's sonatas and Barthelemon's sonatas opus 2 and opus 4, were originally published in parts; Calvert Johnson has made the keyboard part a keyboard score by adding the other instrumental parts, as well as preparing separate partbooks. It is worth purchasing these editions if only for the keyboard scores which make it much easier to comprehend the music. Johnson's extensive and valuable information about the composers and their music are further advantages.
Playable at sight for performers of moderate ability, these Classic sonatas are witty, sometimes dramatic, and always fun to play. A marvelous variety of musical styles and types find their way onto the keyboard--dances, marches, joyful songs, and sublime arias. Valentine's sonatas are short works, mostly in two movements. Cecilia Barthelemon's sonatas are somewhat more extended and perhaps more subtle, indicating more sophisticated London players and listeners. In the Sonata opus 2, no. 1, for piano and violin, an 18th-century performer would have appreciated the references to the concerto form in the kind of "double exposition" (to use a later term) of the main thematic material, and even the opportunity for a violin cadenza towards the close of the first movement.
Today's performer would be advised to use copies of the 18th-century editions as well as the modern. (Barbara Jackson's new book gives locations of library copies and some private photocopies.) Many performers of early music do use original editions, if only for the beauty of the engraved music and the different "personalities" of various publishers' editions, in contrast to the uniformity of computer printing. It is true that certain 18th-century conventions are confusing to the modern performer, such as the placement of a whole-note in the middle of the measure instead of at the beginning where it is played, but one quickly becomes accustomed to 18th-century notation.
In the case of the sonatas of Valentine and Barthelemon, the original editions may be needed because Johnson's editions for ClarNan introduce a few misprints, and, while it is sometimes clear what the notes should be, sometimes it is not. Johnson has also added many editorial slurs and other articulation marks. While these are enclosed in brackets, and so could conceivably be disregarded, in some passages their abundance makes separating the original notes from the editorial changes quite difficult and distracting. The slur in 18th-century music is an articulation sign that suggests accenting the first note and shortening the last. Johnson's added slurs seem to indicate a later style of phrasing in the context of a continuous legato line. Because articulation in 18th-century music is generally non-legato, with a strong, precise rhythmic profile, a legato performance of Classic music can make the music seem rather lifeless, even boring.
Also distracting, maybe even misleading, are the copious directions from contemporary tutors which Johnson summarizes in his preface concerning the interpretation of trill signs and appoggiaturas. The performer might well infer that ornamentation is the most important issue, or even the only issue, whereas in reality many factors are really more crucial to a lively, effective performance, chiefly tempo, rhythm, articulation, and expression, that is, expression in 18th-century terms. These new editions also omit the impressive lists of subscribers in the original editions of Valentine's sonatas and Barthelemon's Opus 1 sonatas. With composers of earlier times, especially women composers, one often has little biographical information to start with besides the title page, dedication, publisher's address, perhaps the composer's address, and the list of subscribers. In the case of Ann Valentine, who was a member of a family who dominated musical life in the cosmopolitan city of Leicester in the 18th century, Penelope Mathiesen of Indiana University has identified many of the 138 subscribers--composers, instrument builders, organists, and other musicians--in her column "Winds of Yore" in Continuo, The Magazine of Old Music, for February 1993. In the case of Barthelemon, daughter of two leading London musicians, the list of 300 or so subscribers, which includes many members of the royal family, suggests even more intriguing connections which have so far not been fully investigated.
Also from the Classic era, Barbara Jackson has edited Trois sonates pour la harpe ou piano-forte avec accompagnement de violon (1785) by Madame Clery, which ClarNan published in 1988, and the 2d Duo for Harp and Piano (after 1783) by Madame Brillon de Jouy, published in 1993. For the latter, Jackson worked with copies of the composer's autograph manuscript score, complete with performance markings, to produce two separate partbooks, one for harp and one for piano; an edition of the score itself would certainly be useful, too. The three-movement Duo is an excitingly rhythmic piece of music with much exchange of parts in "dialogue" style. Jackson discusses much of the music at length and describes the kinds of sounds and effects that were possible on 18th-century pianos and harps that would have been available to the composer. It is also playable by two pianos, or two harps, although that kind of instrumentation sacrifices the contrast in timbre.
Jackson's edition of the VI Sonate da camera per il flauto traversiere e violoncello o cembalo (1756) by a composer known as Anna Bon di Venezia (1740-after 1767) includes another of the extraordinarily valuable biographical and historical essays for which ClarNan editions are known. Information about the life and musical activities of this composer must be pieced together from surviving bits of information such as the title pages of her works, many indirect sources, and a few vague references. The earliest work in the ClarNan catalog is the motet Duo Seraphim (1609) by Caterina Assandra, which is published in a volume with Non tema no di morte (1674) by Maria Francesca Nascinbeni (c. 1658-after 1674); both works are written for three treble voices and continuo.
One of the best results of such painstaking scholarship in music is of course increased performance of the music. Editions such as ClarNan's can result in performances of the music for more and more audiences--informed, insightful performances worthy of these informed, insightful editions.
For a current catalog, contact ClarNan Editions, 235 Baxter Lane, Fayetteville AR, 72701, U.S.A., phone (501) 442-7414.