Poets, Mothers, and Performers: Considering Women's Impact on the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach

October 16–18, 2009

Yale institute of sacred music

409 prospect street

New haven, ct

Introduction

Music historiography has typically focused on male composers and their work, resulting in a historical narrative with little female presence. This international conference will recognize the significant impact women had in Johann Sebastian Bach ’s musical community, as performers, recipients, producers, and subjects.

During his tenure as organist in Arnstadt, the young Bach was criticized for letting a “frembde Jungfer” (a foreign young woman) sing from the organ loft. As the apostle Paul had prohibited women from speaking in church, they were certainly not allowed to sing in the choir; and yet, women were teachers (and preachers) of religiosity at home, singing sacred songs to their children, telling biblical stories, and teaching ethical behavior. Women also formed the largest group of congregants in the churches in Bach’s time.

Female musicians were excluded from the performances at church, they played Bach’s music (especially his keyboard music) at home. Bach’s Clavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach (Little Piano book for Anna Magdalena Bach) typifies the pieces women played in the domestic sphere; but Bach’s printed collections of keyboard music, like his Clavierübung, were also performed by women.

Women’s voices were, in fact, heard in church through musical collaboration with Bach: the female poet, Mariane von Ziegler, contributed a number of texts for his cantatas in 1725, and Bach relied on his wives as music copyists. (Some scholars have conjectured that Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, might even have composed some of the music attributed to him.)

Finally, the conference will consider the influence of gendered and feminized tropes upon Bach’s work. For example, the revival of mediaeval mysticism in the 17th and 18th centuries made use of the image of the bride and the bridegroom to represent the relationship between the believer and Christ.

Featuring renowned scholars in the areas of music history, source studies, gender studies, and theology, the international conference will rethink women’s roles in Bach scholarship. The key note address will be given by Prof. Wendy Heller (Princeton). Invited speakers include Mark Peters, Yo Tomita, and Tanya Kevorkian.

The conference is sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in collaboration with the Yale Department of Music and the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at Yale.

Registration is available at:

https://www.regonline.com/Women_and_Bach

Conference Coordinator:

Albert Agbayani (e-mail him now)

Accommodations information for New Haven:
http://www.yale.edu/visitor/lodging.html

Program

(Print schedule)

Friday, October 16, 2009

Sudler hall (in Harkness Hall)

(100 Wall st.)

4:30 pm | Keynote Address and Tangeman Lecture
Wendy Heller (Princeton University)

Searching for Bach: Rethinking the Female Voice in Baroque Music

__________

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Institute of Sacred Music Great Hall

(409 Prospect St.)

9 am to 5:30 pm

9:00 am | Introduction and Welcome by Markus Rathey

9:30 am | Tanya Kevorkian (Millersville University)

Women's Roles in the Liturgy

10:50 am | Mark Peters (Trinity Christian College)

A Woman’s Poetry in Leipzig’s Churches: Mariane von Ziegler as Cantata Librettist

11:50 am | Katherine Goodman (Brown University)

Luise Gottsched: A Female Poet in Bach’s Leipzig

2:00 pm | Janette Tilley (CUNY, New York)

Femininity as Metaphor in Lutheran Piety

3:00 pm | Markus Rathey (Yale University)

Gender Identities in the Christmas Oratorio and its Secular
Models

4:20 pm | David Yearsley (Cornell University)

What is a Sängerin?

8:00 pm | Concert in Marquand Chapel

(409 Prospect St.)

Yale Voxtet, James Taylor, director. Maidens and Brides: Music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Contemporaries. Bach's Coffee Cantata, music of Telemann, and texts of Ziegler

__________

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Institute of Sacred Music Great Hall

(409 Prospect St.)

9 am to noon

9:00 am | Yo Tomita (Queen's University Belfast)

Anna Magdalena as Bach’s Copyist

10:00 am | Andrew Talle (Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University)

The Reception of J. S. Bach´s Keyboard Music among Women before 1750

11:20 am | Ellen Exner (Harvard University)

Hohenzollern Women and the Legacy of J. S. Bach

4:00 pm | Concert in Sprague Memorial Hall

(435 College St.)

Emma Kirkby, soprano
Jakob Lindberg, lute

Songs and solos from early 17th-century Europe.

More info here.

Abstracts of the papers will be available soon.

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