English pianist Susan Tomes' 'Women and the Piano' is, despite the identical cover and similar title, not a translation of 'Vrouw aan de Piano' ('Woman at the Piano'), which was published six years earlier. The approach is different, but both books call for greater attention to women in music history. And that remains necessary. 'Had I been more aware of my female predecessors, I would have drawn strength from that community,' writes pianist and author Susan Tomes.
I was quite taken aback when I saw an advertisement for Womand and the Piano with a book cover that I knew all too well. From surprise to shock and curiosity to disappointment: I didn't know what to make of it. Had my publisher released an English translation of my book without my knowledge? Woman at the Piano onto the market?
Not at all – if we believe the author and publisher. A contact in the United Kingdom who turned out to know author Susan Tomes was able to tell me that she was 'in shock' when she discovered that years earlier, a book with the same cover and similar title had already been released in little Belgium. An inquiry by my publisher Rudy Van Schoonbeek (Vrijdag Publishers) with his English colleagues at Yale University Press confirmed that they had not been informed in advance about the existence of my book. Given the subject matter, the title Womand and the Piano seemed obvious, they responded. As for the cover image – The Keynote by William Chase – they, like myself, had come across it via social media. Incidentally, this beautiful and intriguing painting had been used as a book cover before. Down Under was released in 2018, just months after the launch of my book, A Coveted Possession – The Rise and Fall of the Piano in Australia from the press. Same cover, but with a different focus.
Institutional Sexism
Womand and the Piano focuses instead on virtually the same subject as Woman at the Piano. Almost, because while my interest as a pianist centered on female composers who also played piano, Susan Tomes brings female pianists into the spotlight, most of whom were also composers. Her interest stemmed from her earlier book The Piano – A History in 100 Pieces, in which she had already established that female pianists faced particular challenges.
Our shared starting point was that women as composers, as musicians, or more broadly in all their pursuits and professional activities, their passions and commitments – have been grievously overlooked throughout (music) history. Call it 'institutional sexism,' as Tomes writes.
'When I learned to play piano as a child, I naturally assumed that leading pianists were men, or more precisely, I picked up that message from everything I heard around me.' It's one of her observations that appears almost verbatim in my book as well, but regarding composers. And yes, we had both heard of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, but 'when I began to dig deeper, I became aware that there were far more female pianists who had achieved much in their time,' Tomes also notes. Why had we never heard of them? 'I could only conclude that there was a sort of deep-rooted, unspoken, and collective agreement that we could safely forget them, simply because they were women.'
A Search Story
We both felt it was high time to give these women a voice and a face again. Our approach was different, though. Woman at the Piano – A Year with Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Other Forgotten Composers is my personal account of a search, spread over a year – a year that turned out to be special for me for other reasons as well. In the year I turned 50, bought a new piano, resumed piano lessons, experienced burnout, and changed jobs, I scoured the internet, read numerous biographies, spent hours on YouTube, and bought countless CDs of music by women. All to reconstruct the lives of these musically talented but forgotten women and to be able to play their piano music myself. I did all this as an amateur pianist. I wanted to inspire my readers to go searching themselves and, who knows, perhaps to (re)take up piano. For this, I chose to write a continuous narrative, divided into thirteen monthly chapters. It had to remain easily readable above all, even for those unfamiliar with the subject.
Reference Work
Susan Tomes, a professional pianist, approached it differently. She lists Womand and the Piano – A History in 50 Lives fifty pianists across fifty entries of two to five pages each. (Clara Schumann is the only one who, given her rich life, receives seven pages.) While my narrative is set in the 19th century and early 20th century, supplemented with some interviews with contemporary composers like Eliane Rodrigues and Annelies Van Parys, Susan Tomes begins at the dawn of the piano era with a portrait of Anne-Louise Boyvin d'Hardancourt Brillon de Jouy (1744-1824) and ends with some pianists from light classical music and jazz like Nina Simone (1933-2003). This makes her book more useful as a reference work. Want to know something about Maria Szymanowska, Marie Jaëll, Teresa Carreño, Winnaretta Singer, Myra Hess, Margaret Bonds, or Tatiana Nikolayeva? You can easily find them via the table of contents at the front of the book. So 50 portraits: very useful and welcome. But would many people read through all of them in sequence?
I selected a few: women I wanted to write about in detail myself sooner or later, and names that are also completely unknown to me. Since I already knew most of them, I was particularly curious about Tomes' introduction and her concluding remarks: Further Perspectives and Where Are We Now?
Composer-Pianists
Tomes points out that major names in piano history typically also composed. Need they be mentioned? Mozart, Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and so on. I also like to point out that the distinction between composing and performing was really only made from the 19th century onward, when musical practice increasingly required skill or even virtuosity. Whoever made music before around 1800 typically performed his own work. Or her own work. Since women certainly did play instruments back then – we can easily confirm this in paintings, for example – they may well have written the music themselves. Highly talented nineteenth-century pianists such as Fanny Mendelssohn, Louise Farrenc, Clara Schumann, Marie Jaëll, Cécile Chaminade, and Amy Beach also composed extensively. But as the century progressed, the number of composer-pianists declined. They didn't break into the league of great composer-pianists and gradually gave up composing, Tomes notes.
The explanation is not hard to find: professional music education became increasingly important but remained virtually inaccessible to women. Tomes cites composer Ernst Krenek, who as recently as 1939 proclaimed that he refused to teach the twelve-tone technique to his female students because they would mostly remain amateurs who didn't need such sophisticated knowledge. Furthermore, women lacked the right networks to support their ambitions. They didn't lead, and were often completely absent from conservatories, orchestras, opera houses, and the not unimportant Masonic lodge. The chances for (in)formal conversations leading to agreements were therefore extremely small. Small wonder that they were much less inclined to compose large-scale works – let alone that women with children would have found the time for that. Smaller-scale work like piano music was easier to write between their household tasks, and could be performed in the home.
So it came to pass that a prominent critic like Eduard Hanslick dared to claim that it was 'lack of talent' that meant 'women had never achieved anything as composers.' Female writers found a way around this stubborn prejudice by using a pseudonym. For women pianists, however, it was impossible to hide their identity.
In any case, Susan Tomes' list shows that there have been many great pianists. But music history became primarily a history of composers.
Competitions
In her concluding remarks, Tomes also reflects on contemporary piano practice, with masterclasses (usually taught by men) and renowned international competitions. Although some of these competitions were founded by female pianists, such as the Clara Haskil Competition in Switzerland, they are notably often won by men. Tomes recalls her indignation as a young girl when in 1966 it was not the favorite Viktoria Postnikova but her male competitor Rafael Orozco who won the Leeds Piano Competition. Her piano teacher explained that it was 'logical that a jury would prefer a man as winner because he would probably be freer from family responsibilities and thus better able to accept offers.' Tomes, who has since served repeatedly on juries, also found that women are underrepresented on them and sometimes feel excluded, which can influence the final verdict.
An anonymous jury without deliberation, as in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, can certainly have advantages. Curiously enough, that competition doesn't appear in Tomes' overview, but I checked: even there, the first prizes have only gone to women twice (out of 21): Yekaterina Novitskaya and Anna Vinnitskaya.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that such competitions often revolve around strength and speed, suggests Tomes. 'Piano competitions resemble end-of-year exams – which, as educators tell us, play to boys' strengths – more than continuous evaluation, which plays to girls' strengths.' Moreover, most of the competition repertoire was composed by men, who often had male performers in mind. 'The pieces that make the greatest impression on the audience are usually the tempestuous nineteenth-century piano concertos, for which large hands and a strong build are an advantage.' Young women, who typically still have smaller hands, are increasingly less deterred by this. And in any case, there are exceptions: Martha Argerich won several first prizes, Daniel Barenboim famously has small hands, Clara Schumann had remarkably large hands. But those remain exceptions.
Survey
What happens once the competition is over? There are certainly prominent female pianists, and they are just as good as their male colleagues. Yet there are fewer of these pianists who are well-known. Many still feel they have to 'storm the citadel,' Susan Tomes concluded from an extensive survey she conducted. Although many concert pianists were reluctant to discuss the difficulties they experienced, Tomes was able to compile a long list of complaints on condition of anonymity. Conductors who are condescending toward solo pianists during rehearsals or can't tolerate them receiving more attention from critics. Women asked by record labels, as a condition for contract renewal, whether they can't first get involved in some scandal to generate extra attention – and if not, then no new contract. Strong suspicions that they are paid far less than their male counterparts. A struggle for recognition of their exceptional achievements, even from those closest to them. Less attention to their excellent playing than to their appearance and outfit – for which they must moreover maintain an extensive wardrobe that needs regular updating to keep up with fashion.
Two Lives
And of course it's hardly surprising that many top pianists have no children. For men, having children barely interrupts their career, while women from then on 'lead two lives.' No concert organizer will ask them whether they need a babysitter backstage or a crib in the hotel – they have to figure it out themselves. Incidentally, as a single mother, Clara Schumann was able to entrust the care of her seven children to household staff during concert tours after Robert's death. But nowadays, hiring household help costs a lot of money – money that even top pianists don't have lying around.
Overall, the problems described by contemporary pianists are the same as those faced by the historical women in the book, concludes Susan Tomes. That's why ultimately it's the gatekeepers who need to change: agents, promoters, festival directors, venue managers, heads of record companies. These are often still men who more readily make deals with men. They are the ones who do or don't provide opportunities. 'Several pianists told me that as a man, they could have reached the top of the career ladder ten years faster.'
Meanwhile, no one listening to an anonymous recording can say with certainty whether a man or a woman is sitting at the piano. 'Fine piano-playing is unisex: hooray,' Tomes cheers somewhat forcedly. Because, she immediately adds, that also means that women have adapted to the male way of playing. Which of course immediately raises the question of whether there might also be a female way of playing. With more feeling and less power perhaps? It remains tricky to make statements about that. In any case, context is decisive, Tomes realizes: 'A small, fragile-looking woman can create an equally powerful and impressive effect as someone whose sound is measurably louder or stronger.'Community
At the end of her book, Susan Tomes reaches a realization for herself: 'When I was young, I didn't feel like I was part of a community of female musicians; I saw it more as my mission to claim a place in the community of male musicians, because that seemed to be where the power was. Had I been more aware of female predecessors, I would have drawn strength from that community.'
And for that reason, books like
– though: Womand and the Piano – and the research of historians who deliberately seek out those female role models remain very welcome. The quote from German suffragette Louise Otto-Peters with which Susan Tomes concludes her book remains very relevant, even though it dates from 1849: 'The history of all times, and especially of today, teaches that women will be forgotten when they forget to think of themselves.' Woman at the Piano Susan Tomes:
- , Yale University Press, 2024, 286 p. Womand and the Piano – A History in 50 LivesVeerle Janssens:
- Woman at the Piano – A Year with Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Other Forgotten Composers , Vrijdag/Pelckmans Publishers, 2018, 367 p.This review also appeared on
- 'Women and the Piano' versus 'Woman at the Piano' Woman at the Piano blog.
