ABSTRACTS FOR GENDER AND MUSICIANSHIP IN NORTH (-)/EASTERN EUROPE, 12 FEBRUARY 2024
The symposium will take place on February 12–13, 2024, at the Helsinki Music Centre.
Rūta Stanevičiūtė
Ethical turn in the music of Baltic women composers
After regaining the independence in 1990, Baltic countries lived through massive tectonic shifts when everyone was engaged in the creation of a new life in freedom. An investigation of changes that occurred in the Baltic musical scene by the turn of the twenty-first century reveals a true boom of creative activity among women composers. For example, at the present time, women composers make up one-third of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union, while the percentage of female students at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre exceeds fifty percent. Moreover, women composers hold half of the artistic director seats of contemporary music festivals, and their names appear in Baltic and international music repertoires just as often as the names of male composers.
The work of women composers was just one of the numerous examples of tectonic breaks in Baltic music having taken place at that time and the formation of new musical identities. The key concept in the music of change was experience, both artistic and social. It was through a variety of experiences that Baltic women composers began to define the individual and the collective present as being different from the past and to express how the newly revealed present changed the past. The inclusion of experience in the discourse of music undoubtedly led to an ethical turning point, without which it would have been impossible to transform the old identities and create the new ones, because, as Jacques Rancière emphasized, ethics “is the kind of thinking that establishes identity between an environment, a way of being, and a principle of action.” (Rancière 2006). Featuring trauma, memory, identity, and value as the fundamental categories important to the musical imagination of Baltic women composers in a reality beyond the post-Soviet, I will discuss post-colonial, post-national, and post-humanistic historical regimes of changing experiences of time after 1990.
Jenna Ristilä
Gender, agency, and status in Carita Holmström’s Södergran songs: subjective music analysis from a performer’s perspective (Ensemble: piano, singer)
(Jenna Ristilä, piano & Marika Kivinen, mezzosoprano)
This lecture recital focuses on Carita Holmström’s song cycle Dagen svalnar (The day cools) – 4 songs to poems by Edith Södergran. Södergran’s poems present a typical ‘innocent woman falls for experienced man’ -narrative, which has been the inspiration of so many poems and songs for centuries. In this lecture I am using the female character’s perspective, her agency and status as the basis of my analysis of Södergran’s poems and Holmström’s compositions. In this kind of stories, the status hierarchy is often clear: the man is the protagonist, and the woman is portrayed as a passive being (the famous other). In this song cycle, however, I claim that many of the compositional choices made by Holmström emphasize the agency of Södergran’s woman, and that both the poems and the music challenge the expected status hierarchy.
Analysing music can be a very subjective and intimate process for a performer. My analysis is inspired by Marion Guck’s article A Woman’s (Theoretical) Work (1994), and Sara Ahmed’s thoughts on personal and theoretical in her book Living a Feminist Life (2017), pp. 10–29. I use Cecilia Ridgeway’s definition of Status from her book Status: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter? (2019).
Biography
Jenna Ristilä is a Finnish pianist. She mostly works with singers, and also performs chamber music and solo repertoire. Currently Ristilä is a doctoral student at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts, Helsinki. Her doctoral project focuses on Finnish composing women from the 19th century onwards and on feminist music analysis. Ristilä is a member of the research association Suoni ry.
Lelde Tīrele
Postcolonial feminism in Evija Skuķe’s cycle for soprano and piano “Feminicity” (Ensemble: piano, singer)
The vocal cycle “Feminicity” by Latvian composer Evija Skuķe’s (1992) was premiered on 24.09.2022 by Latvian soprano Gunta Gelgote and pianist Lelde Tīrele at the festival “Skaņu mežs”. The cycle has 7 movements, three of them in English. In each movement, the composer highlights an awkwardness, a form of oppression or a feeling that one has to deal with as a woman. Evija has written the lyrics herself, inspired by interviews, books, statements available on social networks, personal feelings, and experiences. The composer talks about the stereotypes that are imposed on women. Indian scholar and feminist critic Gayatri Chakravoti Spivak discusses similar issues in the Indian context in her essay “Can Subjects Speak” (1983), while Skuķe talks about the position of post-Soviet women in society, so it is possible to see Skuķe’s work from a postcolonial feminist point of view. The whole series has a common narrative, highlighting the construct, which imposes on women a desired form of behaviour and role in society.
Composer speaks also about the harm done to women by nature, the discomfort caused by menstruation. The male world and art glorify the image of the woman as mother, but all women, must live with these inconveniences for a large part of their lives, listen to men whine about their mood swings, feel almost guilty about what inevitably happens to the body. There are movements where Skuķe quotes male composers in fragments, where they talk about women in their music in a glorifying, derogatory way, with admiration or hatred, but with a sense of superiority. The quotations are often only at the intonational level. The emotion can be perceived without reading the reference. The musical message is enhanced by the theatrical scenic action, spoken texts and various props, which are integral to the full expression of the work’s content.
Program of lecture-recital:
Eija Skuķe (1992) Feminicity
1.You, woman
2.Cycle
3. I am afraid of m(y own body)ne
4. A woman schould
5. M/W
6. Womanhood
7. Moonlight poem
Performed by Gunta Gelgote (soprano) and Lelde Tīrele(piano)
Biographies
Lelde Tīrele (1981) is a pianist with extensive experience in chamber music, mainly with singers and cellists. She has extensive experience as an orchestral musician with Sinfonietta Riga, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and other professional orchestras in Latvia. As an official pianist she has worked in various international competitions for cellists and vocalists, including the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition on several occasions. Since 2003 she has been working at Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, since 2019 docent. Currently studying at the Joint Professional Doctoral Study Programme in Arts of JVLMA, LMA and LKA
Soprano Gunta Gelgotė’s (1982) professional career encompasses music ranging from Baroque to contemporary opuses. She is a frequent performer of contemporary music and has several new music opuses dedicated to her. In 2009 she received the Latvian Great Music Award in the category “Debut of the Year”. In 2022 Gunta received the Lithuanian Theatre Award for Soloist of the Year. Currently she regularly performs with the most important Latvian and Lithuanian orchestras, performs leading roles in Latvian and Lithuanian opera theatres and is active in the field of chamber music.
Maria Athanasiou
Gender, class and power hierarchies in Rebétiko film
Rebétiko film (1983) narrates the life and career of a rebétiko singer and sheds some light to this particular socio-culturally marginalized, but historically significant group of rebétes. It also provides grounds to raise questions about class and gender in the Greek media culture, while challenging several gender-biased allegations about women in a male-dominated scene. Marika, its female protagonist, questions the patriarchal ideology that surrounds rebétiko as a musical genre and becomes its central dynamic symbol, who tells a powerfully affective story and lays the groundwork for further cross-cultural discussions on phenomenology, gender mechanisms, female subjectivities and dimensions of performing history in filmography and musicology. As the ‘cinematic relationship between genders’ after the 1960s (Sorlin, 1991:204) penetrates this movie, it also provides an eloquent example that addresses the new aesthetic standards, where gender-based stereotypes about the leading roles have started to dismantle before a realistic narrative and ‘female characters were depicted as practically and morally equal to men’ (Ibid). Ferris’ approach enhanced the pursuit of ‘authenticity’ on cultural grounds too (Tragaki, 2005:61), as the way he portrayed and historicised a female singer through such an angle reveals several gendered and musical understandings of that time. Marika’s presence, thus, helps revisit the politics of representation and, thereby, deserves further attention, as it nourishes media culture with quasi-biographical narratives of contemporary tragedy in celluloid and opens new perspectives of understanding both in terms of research and practice.
Biography
Maria Athanasiou is an Associate Lecturer at Newcastle University and a Researcher at Durham University. She holds a BA (Hons) in Applied Music Studies, a Master’s degree in Art, Law and Economy and a Ph.D. by research in Musicology. Her award-winning work as a multifaceted educator, researcher and musician focuses on classical and popular music, performance and interpretation, learning and teaching approaches through musicianship, pedagogical methodologies and assessment, as well as activism, social entrepreneurship and digital business in the creative industries and beyond.
Jörg Holzmann
Ellen Sandels and her Damernas musikblad: Europe’s first music magazine completely run by a woman
Ellen Sandels (1859–1931) was a Swedish pianist, composer, screenwriter and editor of a music magazine. In 1902, she founded Damernas musikblad, which she edited until the paper was discontinued in 1913. The magazine appeared in two editions each month and consisted of piano pieces and songs, texts about musical issues, and reviews of concert life in Stockholm and Gothenburg. It was financed by placing advertisements.
Sandels herself was responsible for the editorial work and also wrote some of the published compositions, which could be performed by amateurs without difficulty. In addition, Damernas musikblad contained critical articles by her, such as “Kvinnan som tonsättare” (1903). In this text Sandels recalls that female composers in Sweden were often accused of not being able to “free themselves from foreign influences” and points out that the same also applies to male composers. She then succeeds in turning this accusation into praise by pointing out the benefits of studying non-Swedish compositions and the fact that foreign influences can be identified as such in the first place. The text concludes with a brief presentation of 17 female composers from the last 150 years, including the Swedes Amanda Maier-Röntgen and Laura Netzel as well as the German pianist and composer Ingeborg von Bronsart, daughter of Finnish-Swedish parents, to name but a few.
A systematic evaluation of Damernas musikblad has not yet been carried out, but it seems to be desirable since it is probably one of the first music magazines of the 20th century to be published by a woman. In my presentation, I would like to show that Sandels’ texts, despite their apparently bourgeois appearance, contain some really feminist ideas and contrast them with the thoroughly male-dominated music newspapers that were published at the same time in Central Europe.
Related topics:
- Gender, power hierarchies, and institutions in music industry today and in the past
- Music industry, publicity, and gender
- Histori(ographi)es of gender, music-making, and composing
Biography
Jörg Holzmann first studied classical guitar at the HMDK Stuttgart, graduating with the highest marks in both the artistic and pedagogical courses. Subsequently, he was active as a soloist, chamber musician and composer, worked as a guitar teacher and successfully participated in international guitar competitions, winning prizes at major festivals in Spain, India, Korea and the USA. This was followed by studies in musicology, literature and art history in Stuttgart, Halle (Saale) and Leipzig. He completed his Master’s degree with a thesis on piano roll recordings by women for the Hupfeld company. From 2018 to 2020, he was a research assistant at the Museum of Musical Instruments at the University of Leipzig. Since 2020, he has been employed in the same position in the project “Historical Embodiment” at the Bern University of the Arts, where he is writing his PhD on musicological and music-practical values of early sound film documents.
Johanna Talasniemi
Beauty and the Beast in the North: Soprano on a Tour that Stayed in the Press
In the spring of 2022 Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported on an anonymous donation which the National Archives of Norway had received. The article was titled with the theme of Beauty and the Beast. The donation consisted of a photo album and some documents, like correspondence and receipt of purchase. They were remnants of a tour which Aulikki Rautawaara (1906–1990), a Finnish soprano, had in October 1942 in northern Norway, occupied by Germany at the time. Rautawaara’s host on this tour was German Reichskommissar in Norway, Josef Terboven.
For the first time these same photos and documents had been reported critically in the Scandinavian press in 1946 and they received media exposure a few times in the 1940s and 50s. In my presentation I will discuss what this publicity was about and how it affected Rautawaara’s career.
Biography
Johanna Talasniemi is Licentiate of Music, doctoral candidate at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and senior lecturer at the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Her research interests include cultural historical singer research and the effects of the Second World War on careers of musicians. In her doctoral thesis, she studies soprano Aulikki Rautawaara as a performer of Sibelius’s songs. Talasniemi has published articles on Aulikki Rautawaara’s Sibelius repertoire and on her concert activity in the war years 1939–1944.
Emilia Lajunen
The silent voices of the archives and female folk musicianship today
The word pelimanni is specifically related to a male musician, especially because of the etymological meaning and origin of the word. Research shows that women or people of other genders were hardly ever found as folk musicians before the 1900s. Today, however, as an academic folk musician, I perceive the word pelimanni (fiddler) as a gender-independent title. Historically, however, this has not always been the case, and the change towards gender equality in representation and visibility among professional musicians is happening rather slowly.
As a musician and a female artist, I have long been disturbed by being perceived as pre- and externally positioned within a gendered canon. As a woman, I place myself largely in the historical continuum of male musicians, as no female images have been found in recorded archival material. At least not if you look at the instrumentalists, more specifically the fiddlers. There are hardly any of them. The question arises: do I, as a musician, must adopt the only recognised role, that of a male artist, in order for my art to be accepted? What is my role as a role model for future generations? Can the silent sounds of the archives, combined with artistic research, tell me something?
Biography
Emilia Lajunen is a freelance musician, teacher, and researcher. Her instruments are five-string fiddle, nyckelharpa, kontrabasharpa and voice. As an art teacher at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts, her work focuses on the teaching of fiddle and nyckelharpa. Lajunen’s expertise and passion are archive sound recordings as a source of artistic inspiration, the relationship with tradition, the adaptation of the long aesthetics of runolaulu culture to the present time, and the personal playing styles of fiddlers. The artistic exploration of the musician’s simultaneous playing and dancing has guided Lajunen towards a more embodied artistry and has brought a valuable new dimension to her teaching and research.
Iris Seesjärvi
Gendered experiences of shame in Finnish classical singers: observations from the research material
In my dissertation, I study shame and shame-resilience in the career of Finnish classical singers. I am interested in finding out what kind of experiences and occasions make Finnish classical singers feel shame in their career and before that, during their studies and how these experiences affect the singer, how they deal with the emotion of shame that is related to their singing voice or to them as a singer, and what is the significance of shame-resilience regarding the career of a Finnish classical singer. Theoretical framework of this research is combined with Michel Foucault’s discourse theory, Sara Ahmed’s ideas of emotions as cultural constructions and bodily experiences, and the applications of the affect theory by Tomkins conducted by Kosofsky Sedgwick and Frank. The data for the research is comprised of 15 interviews and 49 survey replies that I collected between November 2022 and March 2023. 76 % of the participants were women, 22 % were men and 2 % announced their gender as “other”.
In this presentation, I focus on gendered experiences of shame in Finnish classical singers. Based on the research data, there are differences in these experiences based on gender: women had more shame-related experiences regarding, for example, age, and appearance, and they experienced more humiliation caused by others compared to men. Some women also brought up sexual harassment they had experienced which had caused them shame. None of the men mentioned experiencing sexual harassment. Based on the data and other research, women tend to feel more shame compared to men. As Ahmed argues, the gender “women” is constructed by shame. In this presentation I rely specifically on Ahmed’s theory and intersectional point of view when considering these differences between genders.
Biography
Iris Seesjärvi (M. Mus., BHum, BA) is a doctoral researcher in musicology at the University of Turku. She began her postgraduate studies in 2021. In her dissertation, she studies shame and shame-resilience in the careers of Finnish classical singers. She is also a music pedagogue (BA) and a diploma singer. Since 2010, she has been doing pioneering work in Finland on vocal shame, which has resulted in Bachelor’s and Master’s theses (2013 & 2017) on vocal shame among singing students and professional singers. As a singing teacher, she specializes in shame-sensitive singing pedagogy and has developed the “silenced by shame” workshop concept together with music pedagogue (MA) Demian Seesjärvi for those suffering from vocal shame. Iris has been a committee member of The Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology since 2022. She has received funding for her doctoral research from Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Anna Ramstedt
Abuse, Misconduct, and Classical Music – A feminist study on social imaginaries and gender inequality in Finland
In my article-based dissertation I study whiteness, gender inequality, sexual harassment, and emotional abuse in classical music culture in Finland. Based on interviews with 14 Finnish white women classical pianists, violinists, violists, and cellists I set out to understand how performance practice ideals, traditions, and aesthetic ideals in classical music culture in Finland are associated with practices of exclusion, and discriminatory practices. The theoretical framework of this dissertation is based on feminist philosopher Moira Gatens (1996/2003; 2004) notion of social imaginaries. Through this notion I explore the symbols, beliefs, narratives, traditions, and representations – social imaginaries – in classical music, and scrutinize how these relate to codes of conduct and harmful social norms.
I ask what are the values that are then been created in classical music culture in Finland through performance ideals, traditions, and representation? How are these related to broader cultural underpinnings? Lastly, what are the implications of ideals specific to classical music culture in creating, reflecting, or (re)producing inequalities? How are these harmful social norms related to inequality, or even, sexual harassment or emotional abuse? Moreover, I explore this discussion with classical music culture’s background within European imperialism and coloniality in mind. I aim to discuss and problematize how this colonial background is present in modern-day classical music practices, despite those discussions of racism and privilege is often portrayed as irrelevant in the Finnish (and Nordic) context.
Biography
I am a PhD student in Musicology at the University of Helsinki. In the past, almost 30 years, I have participated in the classical music culture as a pupil, student, teacher, performer, scholar, and occasionally, a music critic. I have studied piano performance at the Sibelius-Academy (University of Arts in Helsinki) as well as Middle Eastern Studies and Musicology at the University of Helsinki. After completing master’s degrees in these institutions, I have since spring 2020 pursued my PhD full time with the support of a four-year grant I received from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. In year 2020–2021 I was a visiting PhD student in Utrecht University in the Netherlands. For me it is important that information produced in my research is not only directed to other scholars but also to any practitioners in the classical music culture, such as students and teachers. I am a member of activist music research association Suoni.
Jacob Caines
Transnational Learning from Queer Orchestras: two case studies in musical placemaking
This paper situates two contemporary arts organizations within Sarah Ahmed’s framework of Queer Phenomenology (2006; 2010; 2012) and Queer placemaking in cities and institutions (Oswin 2008; Hubbard 2012; Basaraba 2021). The Canadian Queer Songbook Orchestra (QSO) and the Swedish Helsingborg Symphony explore new orientations in queerness and placemaking through institutional mandate, artistic vision, programming, and performance.
Queer Songbook Orchestra (QSO) performances interweave regional Canadian Queer histories with musical elements. Orchestral arrangements of popular works like K.D Lang’s “Constant Craving” and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” are programmed alongside new works by Queer+ Canadian composers. QSO performances are emotional. In their unique orientations, QSO performances become sites of protest, memorial, and celebration. The Helsingborg Symphony commissioned and performed the subversive cantata, “Bögtåget” (“The Fag Train”), in response to an anonymous homophobic letter received in 2018. The commission, the libretto’s use of text from the homophobic letter, and the public performance develops a civic and institutional position towards queerness in the arts. The Helsingborg Symphony reoriented itself in response to queerphobia, temporarily rendering their concert hall queer. What can institutions learn from new, Queer orientations? How do we make place for Queer futures in classical music? Who has the authority to create that space?
Biography
Jacob Caines is a conductor and professor of musicology, theory, and wind music at the Fountain School of Performing Arts at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a PhD Fellow in Queer Geographies and Queer+ music at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. His research is supported by Concordia University and a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Jacob is the founder and editor of ClassicalQueer.com. Classical Queer is an online publication which promotes the artistic work and contributions of Queer+ classical musicians in Canada. The website is home to the Canadian Database of Queer+ Classical Musicians, an index and digital directory of Queer+ musicians in Canada. Jacob also co-hosts a monthly podcast with trans astrophysicist and Trans Radio UK host, Sammi Jane Smith.
David Gasché
”Women and Wind Music in German-speaking Countries: Understanding the Clichés, Challenges and Transformation Processes”
“Until well into the 19th century, it was considered highly unseemly for women to play wind and percussion instruments – the traditional instruments of the military – even more so in public spaces.” (Lexikon Musik und Gender 2009, 226). This quote shows that the place of women in wind music has long been limited and controversial. It is a reality that women had a minor role because they could not play in public and even less compose for wind instruments. These reasons were not physical but the result of social restrictions. However, specific examples from the history indicate that female instrumentalists and composers were successful. What are the historical, social and esthetic connections between women and wind music? Is wind music still a male domain? How can current changes be analysed and interpreted? This presentation focuses on the research in progress “Women and Wind Music in German-speaking Countries: from Clichés to Diversity” carried out by the International Center for Wind Music Research of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria). The first objective is to present the state of research on the genre and wind music in German-speaking countries. An initial assessment reveals that specific research remains scarce and an international conference in May 2023 at the Institute 12 Oberschützen (Austria) provided a basis and new knowledge for developing initiatives between different institutes and researchers.1 Possible areas of research will then be proposed based on selected examples. A final point will address and discuss the changes and transformation processes. The gender relations among musicians, conductors and composers has changed since the middle of the 20th century. The role of women in wind music is increasingly becoming the focus of artistic debate, but it is not yet accompanied by extensive aesthetic and academic reflection.
Biography
David Gasche began his musical education in Bayonne and continued it at the Conservatory and the University of Tours (France). After his Master in 2004, he pursued at the University of Vienna (Austria) his PhD through a Cotutelle, completed in December 2009. He also obtained in 2011 the “Artistic Diploma” of clarinet at the Prayner Conservatory. His research, his publications and participation in international congresses focus on Viennese Harmoniemusik, gender research and symphonic wind music in German-speaking countries. The attribution of the “Thelen Price” 2012 of the International Society for Research and Promotion of Wind Music (IGEB) rewarded his research. Musical activities also have an important place. He is a clarinettist and a member of the Pannonisches Blasorchester (PBO). David Gasche is currently Senior Scientist at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, director of the International Center for Wind Music Research, secretary of IGEB and president of PBO.
Anne Piirainen and Stephanie Zelnick
Women and the Clarinet: Unraveling the Gender Gap in the Highest Ranked Positions
Throughout the world, there is no shortage in female clarinet students from very beginning ages through graduate school. A real disparity becomes apparent when one begins to exam the rosters of the clarinet sections and faculties of top orchestras and universities. With representation along gender lines diminishing and disappearing as the prestige of the position grows, a radical underrepresentation along gender lines exists at the very top.
Until the mid-20th century, the clarinet was perceived as a “male-only” instrument, a legacy that persists even to this present day. Even though a few females played the clarinet in the 18th and 19th centuries (such as Caroline Schleicher), the first professional appointments of women in orchestras and conservatories are only since the 1940s (e.g., Jeane]e Scheerer and Emily Wolf). Between 1960 and 1980, several female clarinet pioneers paved the way for the present, more equality-aware generation of clarinetists. There are several significant differences between geographic regions and this presentation will tackle both artistic and sociocultural questions around female clarinetistry. The discussion on women clarinetists and inclusion in a more general sense is an important current topic, both in academia and beyond.
The scope of literature on this topic is broad, such as in the International Clarinet Association Journal (Daffinee and Ludewig- Verdehr, 2021; Zelnick, 2019). A thorough analysis of the legacy of the midcentury women pioneers, however, is still missing. Seen through the lens of presentday performers and literature on the subject, this research aims to give new insights to the processes that hinder or enable women to be professional clarinetists up to highest ranks and to identify what we can learn from the past to form a constructive and inclusive future.
Biographies
Dr. Stephanie Zelnick is the Professor of Clarinet at the University of Kansas. She has performed and taught throughout the United States, Asia, South America, and Europe to great critical acclaim. Her work can be heard on NaUonal Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio and the Naxos and Innova labels, among others. Dr. Zelnick is a Buffet-Crampon Artist and Clinician. More biographical information can be found at www.stephaniezelnick.com.
Finnish-German clarinetist Anne Elisabeth Piirainen graduated as Doctor of Music at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. Currently she is conducting postdoc research project at the Research Institute of the Uniarts Helsinki. She recently published her CD “Dreams and Dances” with clarinet compositions by the Krein family. Piirainen is active as clarinet performer, pedagogue and as researcher. https://sites.uniarts.fi/web/clarinet-music.
Kateryna Ielysieieva
Queen Christina of Sweden as the muse of opera in Rome
Queen Christina of Sweden was an educated dilettante, a generous philanthropist, a secular grand dame, for whom there were no conventions and any restrictive laws, was at the head of many cultural and artistic initiatives. Music and theater were the noblest of her passions. Not surprisingly, she played an important role in the history of the 17th century.
After abdicating the Swedish throne in 1654, Christina went on a journey through Europe. In 1655, in Innsbruck, she announced her conversion to Catholicism, and by the end of that year she ended up in Rome. It was with the Eternal City that almost her entire future life turned out to be connected. The queen’s house soon enough became one of the main centers of cultural life in Rome. The best musicians of the city served in her chapel, among which were Carissimi, Pasquini and Corelli. She also patronized Stradella and the young Alessandro Scarlatti. Of greatest interest is opera “The Life of a Human, or the Victory of Mercy” composed for the Roman carnival of 1655–56, distinguished by its special splendor, and did go down in history as the “Queen’s Carnival”. Rome welcomed not just Christina of Sweden, but also in her person the victory of the Catholic Church.
Thanks to the emergence of gender studies and the liberalization of public opinion since the 60s of the 20th century, the study of the biography of Queen Christina of Sweden has acquired a new perspective. The exhibitions, concerts, films have been dedicated to this topic. These events attracted the attention of experts in the field of arts.
In this paper, I argue that the gender studies contributed to the discovery the active and extremely diverse participation of Queen Christina of Sweden in the cultural life of the Europe in the 17th century and to spread her experience for nowadays.
Biography
Kateryna Ielysieieva was born in Kharkov (Ukraine) in 1972. First, she studied piano and chamber music in the Kharkov Special Music School where she took lessons with Helena Kolesnikova and then in the Kharkov Institute of Arts with Sergey Yushkevich (piano) and Inna Inyutochkina (chamber music, accompaniment). She studied the harpsichord with Natalia Sviridenko, the organ with Olga Dmitrenko.
She participated in the concerts with orchestra in Kharkov (1989), in the festival “Kharkov assemblies” (1995), took part in the Alessandro Casagrande International Piano Competition, Italy (1996). She participates in the concerts as a harpsichordist, organist, pianist.
Now she works as Senior Lecturer at National Academy of Culture and Art Management in Kiev. She took part in the national and international conferences as a musicologist, has the publications in musicological journals.
Erin Petti
Napis nad grobem zacny Krowlowej Polski: Combatting Witchcraft Accusations in a Post-mortem Vernacular Song for Queen Barbara Radziwiłł
In 1558, the Scharffenberg Print House in Krakow, Poland, published a song titled, ‘Napis nad grobem zacny Królowe Barbary Radziwiłłówny/ nie gdy będący Królowe Polskiej [An Inscription on the grave of the noble Queen Barbara Radziwiłł/not when she was Queen of Poland]’. This song praised Barbara Radziwiłł, who had died in 1551, as a noble and kindhearted queen, and someone that all Poles should respect and seek to emulate. This paper will argue that this song was commissioned to counter witchcraft accusations levelled during Barbara’s life and repair her image after death. While Queen of Poland, Barbara Radziwiłł was hated and reviled as a witch, and accused of multiple crimes, including seducing her husband, King Zygmunt Augustus, away from his first wife and causing her death, and keeping Zygmunt from the duties of care he owed to his country with her sexual appetite and dark magic. Multiple pamphlets were published during her life detailing these crimes, and very little was published praising her. ‘Napis nad grobem’ is remarkable in its high praise of a women typically vilified by the Polish nobility and public. This paper will consider the text of ‘Napis nad grobem’ in opposition to the wording and content of the witchcraft accusations levelled at Barbara during her lifetime, the implied comparison to a Bible-figure well known for her piety, loyalty, and devotion in the woodcut attached to the song, and the Calvinist and familial connections which reinforce my theory for the origin and purpose of the song as an exercise in image-rehabilitation. This seeks to establish the power of music in posthumous reputation building.
Biography
Erin Petti is a final year PhD candidate at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Her thesis will establish the extent of musical patronage and influence of three sixteenth century Jagiellonian queens of Poland on their courts and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at large. She has presented on ‘Napis nad grobem’ and Polish witchcraft accusations as part of the All Things Sixteenth Century Women event organised by Natalie Grueninger. Her research on this song was utilised by the Lithuanian ensemble Canto Fiorito in their celebratory performce for the 500-year anniversary of Barbara Radziwiłł’s birth. She also specialises in the relationship between music manuscripts at the court of Henry VIII, his six queens, and the palace complex of Tudor England.