ABSTRACT

For a long time, scholars have neglected to examine the construction and social currency of gender in the history of the violin and the way in which virtuose made their mark in the history of violin playing, concert life, and the recording industry in the decades after 1900. The purpose of this chapter is to map salient factors intimately bound up with the mind-set of the associated epoch that had an influential effect on both the repression of female violinists’ musical practices throughout history and their acceptance. The intention here is to demonstrate how gender-based preconceptions and gender stereotyping of musical instruments were important contributors to the numerical predominance of men in Western art music in the past and also hindered women from achieving an equal place with men in the art of playing the violin.