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Girls Gone Classical
listen:
 When listing the greats in classical music, one doesn’t tend to consider women, but they’re out there and very different than their male counterparts... Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn and New Hampshire’s own Amy Beach to name a few. We’ll look at the history and highlights of women in classical music with one of New England’s greatest interpreters of them Virginia Eskin. Laura's guest is Virginia Eskin, Boston based pianist and host of "First Ladies of Music" and 13-week radio series produced by WFMT in Chicago and Northeastern University. This Summer will lead a series of Three Performances and Talks as part of the Monadnock Music Festival. Click here for more information on these concerts.
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Because of my schedule, it's not often that I'm able to listen to The Exchange. However, yesterday when Laura Knoy spoke with Virginia Eskin about women in classical music I dropped everything and listened.
I recently read "Mozart's Women" by Jane Glover, a Mozart scholar, musician and conductor in U.K. Mozart's sister, Nannerl, was a very gifted musician. Their father, Leopold, taught them both, which would indicate that he appreciated his daughter's musical talents. Nannerl went on concert tours with her brother and father until she reached puberty. It was then that Leopold stopped taking her and she remained home, her talents unrecognized. When her brother, Wolfgang, moved to Vienna he wrote to his sister encouraging her to come. Vienna was at that time the center of music in Europe, attracting musicians and composers and offering many opportunities. Wolfgang wrote to Nannerl that there were many families who preferred to hire women to teach music. She would have found a lot of work, instead she chose to remain in Saltzberg with her father. One can only imagine how differently her life would have been had she gone to Vienna.
I was pleased to hear about Ms. Eskin's project to publish a textbook about women composers, and hope she will consider adapting it into a book for the general reading public.
thank you,
Nilda Gomez