This page contains replies to some of the points raised at the RMA conference in response to my paper on women composers (either in the session or in subsequent discussions)…
Continue reading →Category: Conference Papers
RMA18

This page contains supporting material for my presentation at the Royal Musical Association’s annual conference at Bristol University on 13-15 September 2018.
Continue reading →Statistics as a tool in researching women composer populations
My field of research is using statistics to explore the history of music. Today I’d like to talk about some analysis I’ve done on women composers and their works. Time is short, so I’ve got just four charts, and I’ll talk briefly about what they tell us about women composers, and about the data and the methodology, and the sort of issues that can arise with this sort of investigation. There is more detail available at this link.1
The first chart is an attempt to quantify how many women composers there are.2 Continue reading →
RMA Annual Conference
Music History Stats has been a bit quiet recently as I’ve been busy working on my paper on women composers for the Royal Musical Association’s annual conference at Bristol University on 13-15 September. Continue reading →
British Composers as seen by Hofmeister
The gentleman pictured to the right is Welsh composer Henry Brinley Richards.1 Although he is little-known today, his piano nocturne ‘Marie’ Opus.60 was the most published British musical work in Germany in the nineteenth century. German music lovers could purchase ‘Marie’ in its original form or in various arrangements in an impressive 34 separate publications from 27 different publishers between 1861 and 1877.2
That conclusion comes from an analysis of Hofmeister’s Monatsberichte – a monthly listing of music publications appearing in the German market, compiled by Leipzig music publisher Friedrich Hofmeister from 1829 onwards. The Monatsberichte up to the end of the nineteenth century are available as an online database, listing about a third of a million publications from over 36,000 composers. This article is about the British composers and their works that appear in Hofmeister’s listings. Continue reading →