Clara (Weick) Schumann Frontispiece
Eleanor of Aquitaine 50
Richard and Cosima Wagner 88
Marie Wieck 91
Marie Antoinette 114
Sybil Sanderson 130
Maggie Okey 144
Louisa Adolpha Lebeau 164
Adele Aus der Ohe 171
Cecile-Louise-Stephanie Chaminade 174
Augusta Mary Ann Holmes 178
Mrs. H. H. A. Beach 196
Julia Rive-King 204
Ingeborg von Bronsart 220
Teresa Carreno 232
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WOMAN'S WORK IN MUSIC
CHAPTER I.
ANCIENT AND MYTHICAL
The Church of Rome, though admitting no women to a share in performing
its services, has yet made a woman the patron saint of music. The
religions of antiquity have paid even more homage to the weaker sex in
the matter, as the multitude of musical nymphs and fostering goddesses
will show.
Of Saint Cecilia herself little is known accurately. The very apocryphal
legend states that about the year 230 a noble Roman lady of that name,
who had been converted to Christianity, was forced into an unwilling
marriage with a certain Valerian, a pagan. She succeeded in converting
her husband and his brother, but all were martyred because of their
faith. This it is stated, took place under the Prefect Almacus, but
history gives no such name. It is unfortunate, also, that the earliest
writer mentioning her, Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, speaks of her as
having died in Sicily between the years 176 and 180. It is doubtful
whether she would have been known at all, in connection with the art,
but for a passing phrase in her story, which relates that she often
united instrumental music to that of her voice in sounding the praises
of the Lord. Because of these few words, she is famed throughout musical
Christendom, half the musical societies in Europe are named after her,
and Raphael's picture, Dryden's ode, Stefano Maderno's statue, and a
hundred other great art works have come into existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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