Media Representation of Musical Women

Title: Media Representation of Musical Women in Vienna, Berlin, and Prague during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century 
Provider: CAS, MSM Programme
Duration: 2021–2022
Recipient: Institute of Art History, CAS
PI: Anja Bunzel

Resume: 
This project explores representations of musical women in the print media in Prague, Berlin, and Vienna during the first half of the nineteenth century. Although different in nature and chronology, all three cities featured a rich cultural life including private and public performance spaces; music publishers; music-pedagogical institutions; and musically-oriented print media. The contemporary press testifies to this cultural diversity and to women’s involvement therein. Despite an increasing interest in gender-oriented musicology in the past decades, little effort has been made to examine systematically in what way, how frequently, and through which perspective musical women were represented in the contemporary media during the first half of the nineteenth century. Via a content analysis of relevant media, this project re-evaluates the role of women within musical culture also in relation to their male contemporaries. It adds to current discourses in music history, repertoire, and cultural studies and embraces two peer-reviewed studies and a conference presentation.