9 - Did Women Have a Classical Style?

Summary

The extraordinary growth of scholarship on women composers in recent decades inspires not only female inclusion in traditionally all-male historical narratives but also reappraisal of the period styles that structure those narratives. Does the music of women composers follow patterns of change enshrined in such heirloom categories of music history as Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic? What is the critical potential of women’s work as composers for rewriting music-historical surveys? With the music of around 400 female composers of the eighteenth century now known to survive, the field is established for the appraisal of women composers’ relationship to the Classical period, and the ‘Viennese Classical Style’ associated with it.¹

The formerly dependable terms invoked thus far – period, Classical, Viennese, and style – deserve rethinking.