The Craft of Music: Women's Music-Making in Nineteenth-Century Norway

Abstract

In this dissertation, I investigate how music creation and performance wereintegral to the experience of womanhood in Norwegian life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Feminized musical labor is a necessary part of musical communities and economies, which critiques the question of professionalization in musical production. This labor promotes the careers and performances of individual musicians and musical organizations. This project focuses on women whose work would not be recognized as traditional music patronage because their support largely happens outside wealth networks and church or ruling class hierarchies. The actions under consideration afforded opportunities for musical production that reflected these women's values and aesthetic commitments. I also discuss and explore the lives of individual women for the particulars of their musical experience, including Gjendine Slålien, Nina Hagerup Grieg, Theodora Cormontan, and Agathe Backer-Grøndahl. Feminized musical labor has long been a necessary part of musical communities and economies, affording professional musicians the opportunities and support to create successful careers. Labor becomes feminized when work otherwise recognized as productive loses its value due to being performed by women. Feminized labor critiques the emphasis on professionalization in composition and performance by highlighting the dependence of professionals on the undervalued labor that supports them.