ABSTRACT
DEAR EDITOR,--It has been often remarked, with toomuch truth, that women have never yet distinguished themselves as composers of music. This is the more curious because they have not shown themselves incapable of rising to great eminence in other branches of· imaginative work. May we not suppose that custom and want of advanced musical education have been at all events partly answerable for their backwardness in musical composition 1 A woman distinguished in literature was a rarity until within the last hundred years, and that there were still greater obstacles to be overcome by women musicians is evident from the story of Fanny Mendelssohn, whose father told her that muaic could never be a serious pursuit with her because of her sex, and who was obliged to publish her compositions with those of her brother and under his name. When after many years she decided to publish independently~ Felix Mendelssohn himself was seriously troubled that his favourite sister should commit so grave an impropriety.
