7 - Sixteenth-century women composers, beyond borders

Summary

Women’s voices from the Common Era sixteenth century embodying their musical creativity, especially those from the continent of Europe, emerge most clearly from the written records of the courts and convents of the time. Clarity is, of course, relative: not only are named female composers many fewer than male composers, but also the music they created has not survived in the same quantities as that of their male counterparts. Since notated, attributed music is at the foundation of the critical frame for the appreciation of European music, and the means whereby European musicology has been able to know of and understand the musicians of the past, the imbalance in documentation has led to a truism: that women’s lack of access to education or the public sphere explains why there were comparatively few sixteenth-century female composers.