ABSTRACT
As has been demonstrated, women were active within every field of the musical profession in interwar France. Women composed, conducted, counted amongst the most high-profile performers of the day, formed their own allwoman orchestras, wrote criticism, and taught. Of the musiciennes considered in detail in this volume, the names of some, such as Marguerite Long, Ginette Neveu, and Wanda Landowska, remain amongst the most famous of all twentieth-century musicians. The names of others, such as Marguerite Canal, Jeanne Leleu, or Jane Evrard, however, have now sunk into almost total oblivion. In assessing the subsequent reception of the musiciennes of interwar France, one fact is particularly apparent: there is a stark difference between the fates of composers and conductors, compared to those of performers. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that gender is a key factor at play in this difference. Performance has long been constructed as a suitable musical occupation for women; conducting and composition – where it is much harder to negate the musician’s input as an active participant in the music’s creation – have not. The majority of the female composers and conductors of interwar France appear to have suffered from the persistent historiographical inclination to airbrush the achievements of women from history, as mainstream narratives of the music of the period tend to remain phallocentric.1
