# developments in classical music



## h1478971 (Dec 6, 2009)

If you see videos from the 1950s and 60s you will notice that there are hardly any women in orchestras in that time period. 

Now there are many women in orchestras. 

Do you think that this is a positive development?

explain your opinions. 

What made women join orchestras in the modern era?


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## chee_zee (Aug 16, 2010)

I think this is a negative development. Women do not belong in the orchestra, the only thing they need to be orchestrating is the arrangement of silverware on the dinner table. I think women got jealous of men, and attempted to do what men do, with the unfortunate effect of lowering the quality of orchestral music as a whole, thus resulting in a decline in attendance at symphony halls.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

h1478971 said:


> If you see videos from the 1950s and 60s you will notice that there are hardly any women in orchestras in that time period.
> 
> Now there are many women in orchestras.
> 
> ...


Surely it goes without saying that, in the 50s and 60s, women were actively discouraged - if not actually prevented - by men from joining orchestras just as they were discouraged from many other professions. And it was partly equal rights legislation that forced the issue rather than any realisation by men that they were behaving unjustly. It wasn't a case of women suddenly deciding it would be a nice idea to play in an orchestra!


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

There has been a vast change in the demographics of working life throughout the world in the last sixty years, brought about by a variety of factors, starting with World War II, the advent of "Women's Lib", the ability of women to control - to a degree - their own fertility, the education of women and doubtless a dozen factors I have not mentioned. 

In South Africa we are starting to see people of colour in our orchestras, and this is being welcomed. Wish there were more people of colour putting their bums onto paid for seats.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Do orchestras still audition with the applicant behind a screen, so they don't know their age, race, or gender? In a situation like that, it doesn't really matter if the group is made up of men, women, or Martians so long as they can play well.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

@Manxfeeder, yes there are blind auditions still.

I think there are plenty of examples of women musicians who are equal to men, take Martha Argerich, Hilary Hahn, Jacqueline Du Pre, Paula Robison. And not just "equal," but unique musicians in their own right.

I got some insiders information that may be interesting to you all. My flute professor, who is a graduate from the Curtis Institute said that back when he was there, the Symphony Orchestra they had was not even as good as my state university's orchestra. Furthermore, that was back in the 50s, when there was all men in the orchestras, and my university's orchestra has something like 60:40 ratio of women to men. So wouldn't that conclude that adding women makes orchestras better, right? :tiphat:

But seriously... can you imagine a male harpist?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Simple cultural context gender bias is what kept women out of orchestras, and business, and many other working positions in those eras. Now, out military has female jet-fighter pilots, and women are part of armed troupes, and also go into battle.

The reasons for the shift of attitudes have been named by others in this thread: WWII saw American women doing jobs which were prior simply assumed as 'men's work' and thought of as only being capable of being done by men. With that home effort, in both America and Britain, women were riveting airplanes together in factories ("Rosie the Riveter"), driving trucks in transports, and quite efficiently demonstrated completely equal capability in many areas formerly 'reserved' for men.

Orchestral institutions were de facto male bastions (many still are, but as you've seen, that is changing,) often with the only exceptions being the harpist and flautist, still today weirdly perceived of as 'women's instruments.' That odd and irrational social convention did not prevent virtuoso (male) Harpists, Nicanor Zabaleta, or Edward Druzinski, two name but two, from having internationally solid and respected careers (Zabaleta a soloist, Druzinski principal harpist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many decades.)

That convention about flute = female is beyond ironic -- it is hilariously funny: it takes just as much diaphragmatic strength and air capacity to play the flute as is required to play a tuba! (the traverse mouthpiece means a lot of air is not going directly into that much smaller bit of metal piping.)

Other than perhaps the difference in muscle mass (say needing to bench press 280 pounds) women are just as capable as men -- at just about everything. (When NASA was doing preliminary physiologic testing on potential astronauts, it was found fact that women in general have much greater stamina than men 

My only opinion about this subject is an abstruse retro-projection as to 'what might have been' if women had not been held back, both by men and women accepting the subservient status: what contributions might we have had from from the exceptionally bright and talented women of the past if they had been 'allowed' to exercise their talents in all those disciplines conventionally thought to be 'not women's territory or business -- the arts, sciences, literature, etc. had that dynamic been different? A tantalizing 'what if.'


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> But seriously... can you imagine a male harpist?


When I was in junior high I went to a concert with dual harpists, both male. I don't remember much of the music; I just remember they tried to be funny with silly statements like, "We're just harping around." I can't imagine a female harpist doing _that._


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> But seriously... can you imagine a male harpist?


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> But seriously... can you imagine a male harpist?













Iforgotmypassword said:


> Anyway, here's an incredible mini-concert by a latin jazz harpist:


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> @Manxfeeder, yes there are blind auditions still.
> 
> I think there are plenty of examples of women musicians who are equal to men, take Martha Argerich, Hilary Hahn, Jacqueline Du Pre, Paula Robison. And not just "equal," but unique musicians in their own right.
> 
> ...


Yes, the most famous harpist ever was or is Nicanor Zabaletta.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

h1478971 said:


> If you see videos from the 1950s and 60s you will notice that there are hardly any women in orchestras in that time period.
> 
> Now there are many women in orchestras.
> 
> ...


It depended on the orchestra and the country, Beecham was completely against women members.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

moody said:


> Yes, the most famous harpist ever was or is Nicanor Zabaletta.


I though it was Harpo Marx . He was certainly the funniest.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

moody said:


> It depended on the orchestra and the country, Beecham was completely against women members.


You could never tell whether Beecham actually meant anything he said, but his claim used to be that he didn't like women players in his orchestra because "if they're good-looking they distract the players, and if they're not they distract me"
cheers,
GG


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

GraemeG said:


> You could never tell whether Beecham actually meant anything he said, but his claim used to be that he didn't like women players in his orchestra because "if they're good-looking they distract the players, and if they're not they distract me" cheers,
> GG


Ha! That's so him!


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I really don't think it matters...men and women can both be just as equally skilled at playing an instrument, so I really don't see why gender should be a factor in orchestra makeup at all. In the 50s/60s it was just the result of the lack of rights that women had, as well as the societal expectations for women in the period.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

chee_zee said:


> I think this is a negative development. Women do not belong in the orchestra, the only thing they need to be orchestrating is the arrangement of silverware on the dinner table. I think women got jealous of men, and attempted to do what men do, with the unfortunate effect of lowering the quality of orchestral music as a whole, thus resulting in a decline in attendance at symphony halls.


Damned right, old man: keep'em uneducated, at home, barefoot, and pregnant.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

:lol: Ok ok you guys got me. Of course 100 years ago, orchestras had only male harpists. I bet they're increasingly rare nowadays though.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

To the OP -

You must have been looking at European orchestras (very conservative, esp. in East-Central Europe).

Here in Australia, it has been better. We may be the _ar*e end of the world_, according to a former Prime Minister of ours, but we were pretty advanced in these things (South Australia was among first places to give women the vote in about 1896).

From wikipedia article on Melbourne Symphony Orchestra:

_In 1923, Bertha Jorgensen became the first female leader of a professional orchestra in Australia, and she went on to play with the orchestra for 50 years and became the longest-serving female leader of an orchestra on an international scale._

Also according to Wikipedia, the Vienna Philharmonic only allowed women to play in it in 1997.

Europe is so advanced and enlightened...NOT.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

PetrB said:


> *That convention about flute = female is beyond ironic -- it is hilariously funny: it takes just as much diaphragmatic strength and air capacity to play the flute as is required to play a tuba! (the traverse mouthpiece means a lot of air is not going directly into that much smaller bit of metal piping.)*


Yay I'm not the only one who attests to that around here! It's true. I don't get light-headed when I play, but I've heard that other wind players who try the flute for the first time do. Flutists lose almost half their air blowing across the mouthpiece, the ratio is something like 60:40, air into flute vs. across.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

Increasing the pool of musicians has only improved the quality of the orchestras. One must be a much better player now to gain an orchestra position than even 50 years ago.
In our local orchestra there are 9 female principals, including the concertmaster, and 7 male principals.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Lunasong said:


> Increasing the pool of musicians has only improved the quality of the orchestras. One must be a much better player now to gain an orchestra position than even 50 years ago.
> In our local orchestra there are 9 female principals, including the concertmaster, and 7 male principals.


How often am I going to hear this nonsense trotted out? If you are trying to tell me that any present day orchestra is up to tha standards of the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit and 
Chicago orchestras ot the sixties I will reply, go and listen to the recordings. There are others that can be added to this list.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

The question of male vs female is such an old, tired question. Currently we, in South Africa, are looking at the number of 'minorities' (American terminology for in Africa whites are the minority, and what we really mean in South Africa is 'formerly disadvantaged' people) in our orchestras and concert halls.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

I would rather watch female musicians, being that they are the fairer sex and embody the music as such.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Moira said:


> The question of male vs female is such an old, tired question. Currently we, in South Africa, are looking at the number of 'minorities' (American terminology for in Africa whites are the minority, and what we really mean in South Africa is 'formerly disadvantaged' people) in our orchestras and concert halls.


Oh for goodness sake, why don't you just pick the best, you can't put formerly disadvantaged (pitiful) people in to the orchestra for the sake of it. If the orchestra ends up lousy they will be disadvantaged when nobody comes to the concerts.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

moody said:


> Oh for goodness sake, why don't you just pick the best, you can't put formerly disadvantaged (pitiful) people in to the orchestra for the sake of it. If the orchestra ends up lousy they will be disadvantaged when nobody comes to the concerts.


^^Yeah but doesn't one of the best orchestras in Latin America, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, consist in a good part of people with poor/disadvantaged background?

It's not just any poor person, but the orchestra scouts around the region for the best players, or those with potential to be part of the group. There were a number of musicians from poor background in the past (but I admit, not many, most were from better off or well to do families). Hungarian pianist who later settled in France, Georges Cziffra was from very poor Hungarian background, he grew up in poverty. So it's possible to make it big in classical with that background.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

@ Sid, Absolutely spot on! Gustavo Dudamel has done a marvelous job with these very gifted--though often economically underprivileged--teenagers. Their playing is--at least to my untrained ears--quite polished and professional.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

moody said:


> Oh for goodness sake, why don't you just pick the best, you can't put formerly disadvantaged (pitiful) people in to the orchestra for the sake of it. If the orchestra ends up lousy they will be disadvantaged when nobody comes to the concerts.


I wish the FUNDERS would think that way. However, set your mind at rest, the players in the orchestra are not pitiful players in any sense of the word. They are no more pitiful than women in an orchestra. They are fully trained, competent professional musicians. In fact the ones that come to the orchestra through Buskaid (Rosemary Nalden) are probably very much more competent than some of their counterparts trained by lesser teachers. It is simply that we, in South Africa, need them in order to show that the orchestra is not simply a dated white luxury.

I am trying to get our orchestra to introduce a fourth piece each week - a short African piece in the "township" style known as Kwaito. Later other African works in different styles. Not so much for the audience, although it will be good for many of them to hear that local music can be enjoyable, but for the FUNDERS. These are people who want to know why they should fund a western-style orchestra in Africa.

Now if any one here has good ideas on how to grow a classical music audience from a sector which has not been exposed to classical music before ... you could make a fortune as a consultant!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Moira said:


> I wish the FUNDERS would think that way. However, set your mind at rest, the players in the orchestra are not pitiful players in any sense of the word. They are no more pitiful than women in an orchestra. They are fully trained, competent professional musicians. In fact the ones that come to the orchestra through Buskaid (Rosemary Nalden) are probably very much more competent than some of their counterparts trained by lesser teachers. It is simply that we, in South Africa, need them in order to show that the orchestra is not simply a dated white luxury.
> 
> I am trying to get our orchestra to introduce a fourth piece each week - a short African piece in the "township" style known as Kwaito. Later other African works in different styles. Not so much for the audience, although it will be good for many of them to hear that local music can be enjoyable, but for the FUNDERS. These are people who want to know why they should fund a western-style orchestra in Africa.
> 
> Now if any one here has good ideas on how to grow a classical music audience from a sector which has not been exposed to classical music before ... you could make a fortune as a consultant!


I think I am being misunderstood here, my fault for being clumsy---also it was 2.08 am.
Firstly the "pitiful" was aimed at the polically correct phrase "formerly disadvantaged people" and such clap-trap. I am aware that being poor or from an ethnic background should not be a barrier to success, when Caruso was a boy he had no shoes but managed to make it !

But if a disavantaged person is a good enough instrumentalist to be considered for an orchestra he/she must have got to that standard somehow. It's usually by the sacrifice of parents and family or by the support at school, in the community or in the church.
I had a vision from what you said that the powers that be were going to scour the landscape for youngsters to "make" into musicians. I can still imagine such a scenario in these days of PC, after all we had a situation in this country where persons from minority backgrounds were chosen, for that reason only, to be put forward as political candidates .
Sid says that there were not many musicians from poor backgrounds in the past. Not true, particularly in America, look at how many came from from religious or political refugee families who had escaped there.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

moody said:


> I think I am being misunderstood here, my fault for being clumsy---also it was 2.08 am.
> Firstly the "pitiful" was aimed at the polically correct phrase "formerly disadvantaged people" and such clap-trap. I am aware that being poor or from an ethnic background should not be a barrier to success, when Caruso was a boy he had no shoes but managed to make it !
> 
> But if a disavantaged person is a good enough instrumentalist to be considered for an orchestra he/she must have got to that standard somehow. It's usually by the sacrifice of parents and family or by the support at school, in the community or in the church.
> ...


South Africa has a vast number of superb musicians, we are after all one of the most musical nations on earth (my opinion), but very few of them operate within the classical tradition. We have a great choral tradition and almost every (older) black person reads tonic solfa well enough to sight sing, something very few singers in the average choir in most parts of the world can do when presented with a standard music score (or tonic solfa for that matter). Any musician in South Africa who wants to do choral work HAS to be able to convert ordinary music to tonic solfa. A lot of our musicians are jazz musicians.

One of the things that quite irritated me and conversely made me proud (ambivalence is normal, right?) in my days in The Salvation Army was the number of kids we taught to play brass instruments in comparison to the number of adults who actually stayed in our bands to play - one expects attrition, but the reality was that we were often simply a music school for kids who would not have otherwise been able to learn music.

In one place the local musicians made the discovery that my music theory is considerably better than my practical skills and I was inundated with requests to teach music theory. My classes got quite big - at one time I had about a dozen students learning the rudiments of music theory - every single one of them far more skilled in actual instrumental playing than I could ever be. The Salvation Army allows one to use almost any meeting for statistical purposes if one includes both an opening and closing prayer and a Bible reading/devotional as part of that meeting. So I taught music theory for Jesus.  Sadly, I never managed to persuade any of them to form a choir for The Salvation Army.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

mud said:


> I would rather watch female musicians, being that they are the fairer sex and embody the music as such.


I feel like I wandered into a smoke-filled executive's office on _Mad Men_. Are we seriously having this conversation in 2012?

And I notice women are being discussed as if they are "over there, somewhere." Are there no women active on this forum?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> @Manxfeeder, yes there are blind auditions still.
> 
> I think there are plenty of examples of women musicians who are equal to men, take Martha Argerich, Hilary Hahn, Jacqueline Du Pre, Paula Robison. And not just "equal," but unique musicians in their own right.
> 
> ...


A not advertised fact is, post 1950's there was a global rise in at least the technical standards of musicians, including in conservatories. It is thought that many a grad student now has equivalent technique to some rather famous soloists from the first half of the 20th century. The standard is that much higher, in professional orchestras and conservatories - this does not include that more abstract quality of great musicianship, but does speak to proficiency in accuracy, playing at velocity, and what professionals are able to sight read, as well.

*"But seriously... can you imagine a male harpist?"* Why -- are there no men in 'heaven.' 

*Nicanor Zabaleta; Edward Druzinski* -- look'em up.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

moody said:


> I think I am being misunderstood here, my fault for being clumsy---also it was 2.08 am.
> Firstly the "pitiful" was aimed at the polically correct phrase "formerly disadvantaged people" and such clap-trap. I am aware that being poor or from an ethnic background should not be a barrier to success, when Caruso was a boy he had no shoes but managed to make it !
> 
> But if a disavantaged person is a good enough instrumentalist to be considered for an orchestra he/she must have got to that standard somehow. It's usually by the sacrifice of parents and family or by the support at school, in the community or in the church.
> ...


There are so many factors being ignored here. Poverty isn't the only thing. You cannot equate all those situations to each other. Why would we want to ignore the differences between being (say) an Ashkenazy Jew in New York in the 1930s and being black in South Africa in the 1990s, and being an Italian in Italy in the 1880s? What would motivate us to equate those situations?


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

Hausmusik said:


> I feel like I wandered into a smoke-filled executive's office on _Mad Men_. Are we seriously having this conversation in 2012?
> 
> And I notice women are being discussed as if they are "over there, somewhere." Are there no women active on this forum?


I'm here. But I don't bother with men vs women stuff. I was fortunate to grow up with a father who was a real women's libber.  It left me secure about being a woman.

Besides, there are more women than men in our local orchestra.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

moody said:


> ...Sid says that there were not many musicians from poor backgrounds in the past. Not true, particularly in America, look at how many came from from religious or political refugee families who had escaped there.





science said:


> There are so many factors being ignored here. Poverty isn't the only thing. You cannot equate all those situations to each other. Why would we want to ignore the differences between being (say) an Ashkenazy Jew in New York in the 1930s and being black in South Africa in the 1990s, and being an Italian in Italy in the 1880s? What would motivate us to equate those situations?


What both of you say makes me think that the European emigres who went to the USA to build their future, or their kids future, they may have arrived there with nothing much than a suitcase, but in their minds, they bought their culture from the old country. Many would have disappeared into the factories and labour jobs like on the waterfront, getting cargo from the docks, or the abbatoirs. But others, esp. I'd think those with _middle class_ background in Europe would have gotten into professions, including music.

So what I'm saying is that maybe USA had more social mobility than Europe, as Australia had (but our population and economy is only a fraction of the USA). I'm talking of _the American dream_, what it says on the Statue of Liberty - _bring me your huddled masses _or whatever.

But moody is right as well, as after 1945, the old _class system _started to break down, including in Europe. But people like Georges Cziffra still had a hell of a fight to get where he got to, with that poor background. In terms of composers, the vast majority of them came from middle to upper class. The only ones who grew up in dire poverty that I can think of were Brahms and Allan Pettersson. People can add more but I don't think many came from almost absolute poverty as those two did.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

The Haydn brothers (Franz Joseph, and Michael) came from a poor family.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Hausmusik said:


> I feel like I wandered into a smoke-filled executive's office on _Mad Men_. Are we seriously having this conversation in 2012?
> 
> And I notice women are being discussed as if they are "over there, somewhere." Are there no women active on this forum?


Well, I think Moira can be classified as female.


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