Posted by Marcus Andrews on February 26, 2002 at 00:19:23 from 213.1.66.182:
In Reply to: Chaminade posted by Peter H on February 25, 2002 at 15:24:30:
As an AR-reading pianist, I never really thought of it like that, but I suppose you're quite right. One thinks of the GA as being rather stuck in the past, so it would be assumed that she would disapprove of a lady-composer. Women composers have existed since the beginning of Western music, but have always been overlooked until quite recently. Similarly, high voice parts were sung by boys or castrati.
How should this change the way we look at the GA? Could she have been somewhat more with the times than one might imagine? In PM there are certainly parallels drawn between her and Nancy in their attitudes to life. Perhaps that extended to the whole women being as good as men issue that popped up in discussions about Nancy lower down.
Could she have been a frustrated artiste? Dorothea remarks to herself that the GA plays reasonably well, though this is in comparison to Nancy and Peggy! I always saw the GA's pianism merely as being part of the Jane Austen style 'accomplishments' expected of a lady. Now you've got me thinking!
Almost certainly reading too much into this. Is there any evidence that Ransome knew anything at all about classical music? I suspect he merely named Chaminade as a composer who was fashionable at the time.