Ok so a thing I am discovering (I am thinking out loud here) is that frustratingly, when you teach Clara Schumann/historical woman composers, you gotta expend a lot of time and energy explaining context that you don’t need when teaching canonic male composers

Like, I’ve studied Chopin SO MUCH and never once learned in a classroom *why and how* he was able to compose, and what that means in a historical context

And sure, I could just be like “Clara Schumann existed and composed music. Let’s look at how she transforms themes across large-form structures!” but that would be irresponsible af because

If you don’t examine *how* she was able to write music and *why* she didn’t write more and *why* we generally don’t study her in standard curriculums, you might end up with students thinking “well then why didn’t more women just compose? maybe the music just isn’t good?”

So like, I gotta explain what factors worked for Clara Schumann that didn’t work for other women of the time. I gotta talk about Robert bc I have to explain that she generally got composing done when his health was stable. I gotta talk about how much servants cost at the time

I have to mention that she had a spate of productivity after Robert was institutionalized, and how singlehandedly managing a household with 7 kids wasn’t an issue without him bc she had already been running it the whole time

I also have to talk about how she was never able to pivot from performing to composing more, because performing was how she kept the family financially afloat, even though there was clearly demand for her music. I have to mention that she wrote more music, but a lot of it’s lost

It would be irresponsible of me to not mention all this bc there are those famous quotes by Clara herself saying basically “I am not good at composing, and women cannot write music”

If you encounter those quotes out of context, and take them at face value, you end up with people going “Clara Schumann is not a composer worth studying, SHE SAID SO HERSELF” (which is something I’ve seen!)

So I have to explain how all the (positive) reviews of her music say basically “this is so good you can’t tell it’s by a woman” and how Robert himself constantly said he was the better composer and that Clara’s main job was “mother” and that his music was better than hers

So like...of COURSE if the entire world is telling you on a daily basis, “you can’t compose, bc you’re a woman” then you’re going to internalize that and say “I can’t compose, bc I’m a woman”

That context is 100% necessary

These are all examples of the crapton of context I have to provide when I’m ostensibly here to talk about Clara’s music, which I don’t have to do if I’m talking about the dudes we’re all familiar with. Again, I could skip all this, but I think that would be irresponsible

Anyway! I’m sure this is something a lot of you know and have to grapple with already, I’m not discovering anything new here, but it’s really striking how much time gets eaten up by explaining context when you teach underrepresented composers (and Clara is pretty damn famous!)

(The upside of this of course is that I think history is so much richer and more fascinating if you learn/teach it with this context! It brings so much to your understanding of the music itself, and I LOVE that aspect of it)