Women Organists in Victorian Fiction Part 2 Women had been serving as organists in England’s churches – though not in its cathedrals and royal and collegiate chapels – since the end of the eighteenth century, but their role was not … Continue reading
Women Organists in Victorian Fiction Part 1 The image of music in fiction, especially involving women musicians, offers a rich area of discourse for scholars of Victorian literature. Mary Burgan, Paula Gillett, Phyllis Weliver and contributors to a collection of … Continue reading
Playing Upon Versus Playing With the Organ: The Reception of the Organ Recital in Victorian England Part 2 Elizabeth Stirling certainly was not the only organist to play at the 1862 International Exhibition whose choice of music raised some eyebrows … Continue reading
Playing Upon Versus Playing With the Organ: The Reception of the Organ Recital in Victorian England Part 1 I invite you to put yourselves in the shoes of a nineteenth-century Londoner who, on an August afternoon in 1863, is strolling … Continue reading
Women Organists in Victorian England: What Did They Wear? After I had presented a paper about women organists in nineteenth-century England at an organ conference in Oxford, England several years ago, a delegate approached me to ask, ‘But what did … Continue reading
‘Ladies Not Eligible’?: Female Church Organists in Nineteenth-Century England Part 2 In my previous blog (8 Sep 2019) I explored the ‘lady organist issue’, perpetuated in nineteenth-century British newspapers and music journals, that declared women ineligible for organist posts in … Continue reading
‘Ladies Not Eligible’?: Female Church Organists in Nineteenth-Century England Part 1 On 8 April 1865 the Musical Standard carried an announcement by the vestry of Saint John Southwark inviting ‘application from Gentlemen desirous of becoming CANDIDATES for the office of … Continue reading
Women Organists in Victorian England: What Did They Wear? After I had presented a paper about women organists in nineteenth-century England at an organ conference in Oxford [UK] several years ago, a delegate approached me to ask, ‘But what did … Continue reading
‘Place aux dames’? Women Organists in the First World War After carefully reviewing issues of the Musical Times 1901 to 1910, I was not satisfied with the numbers of women organists I was seeing – or not seeing – in … Continue reading
‘Place aux dames’? Women Organists in Edwardian England Writing about ‘Women at the Console’ in the Musical Opinion in 1954, Martin Hawkins noted the conspicuous absence at the beginning of the twentieth century of women organists in any church of … Continue reading