Richard Todd throws in one red herring after another:

>Steven Schwartz writes:
>
>>One major difference is that it requires a lot more technical knowledge
>>to become a composer than it does a writer.
>
>And women couldn't handle it?

No.  But women almost always couldn't get access to technical instruction.
Even in our century, when people theoretically acknowledged women's
equal social status (a fairly new idea in at least the US, by the way),
composition departments tended to be bastions of misogyny, as recently
as 20 years ago.

>>Another difference is that musical scores for study have usually been
>>harder to come by than books.  Amy Beach, for example, a fine composer who
>>taught herself how to write music in rural New Hampshire, had a devil of
>>a time obtaining scores and textbooks, although she came from a well-off
>>family and could afford them.
>
>And John Doe, also living in rural New Hampshire, being a man was able to
>obtain them, and that is why he is a world famous composer?

And your point is what? My point is that without access to formal
instruction - either personal instruction or through books - it is very
unlikely anybody becomes a classical composer.  Amy Beach was a genius
who beat the odds.

>>Let's also ask ourselves how many women were admitted into composition
>>classes in conservatories.
>
>Here are a few men who were not admitted to composition classes in
>conservatories: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms; Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven;
>Schubert, Schumann and . . . well none of these folks applied to a
>conservatory.

I said "conservatories" as a shorthand for formal instruction.  All of the
people you mention received formal instruction:  Bach from his brother,
Beethoven from various teachers, including Haydn, Brahms from his father,
Mozart from his father and Haydn, Schubert from his schoolmasters, etc.
It is exceptional that a composer does not learn from some sort of formal
tuition - classes or apprenticeship.  The only exception that comes to my
mind is Ernst Toch, who taught himself to read music and, using Mozart
scores as texts, to write it.

>Did Amy Beach? And if so, why? Clearly, directed self-study
>has worked remarkably well for some above-average male composers.

Very few composers, even very great composers, are self-formed.

>I don't know.  Given what the training produced in MacDowell, we might
>speculate that Beach was either to smart and talented to want to go through
>the often stultifying process of German academic training, or, if she did
>want to, lucky in that she couldn't.  Okay, I'm being pretty facetious.  I
>do wonder, however, if such training would have made her a better composer.
>There aren't a whole lot of first rank composers who went the academic
>route, you know.

Of course.  As I said, "conservatories" was shorthand.  I'll even throw in
Bohuslav Martinu, who flunked out of the Prague Conservatory *twice*.  But
he did undergo an apprenticeship, with Suk and Roussel, among others.  What
formal training - conservatory or otherwise - does is teach the basics and
maybe adds a couple of layers over that.  It also saves time.  Something
that can take a self-taught composer years to learn can be gotten over in
15 minutes with a teacher.

>>I know that as late as the 1960s, misogyny was pretty rampant in the
>>composition department I studied with.
>
>And everywhere else, including the publishing industry.  This was
>particularly so in the 19th century.

As I say, the essential difference between writing words and writing music
is that music demands more technical knowledge and skill.  Even so, the
numbers of literary women, of whatever ability, run far fewer than literary
men, even in the 19th century.  One indication of this is the fact that
women authors are remarked upon as a phenomenon.

Tillie Olsen, an American novelist, wrote a very interesting book called
Silences, about her decades-long writer's block.  It seemed to come after
the birth of her first child and clear up after her last child left the
house.  She traced the block to her need for uninterrupted time, which she
couldn't get while she was looking after her children.  She doesn't blame
her children for Denying Her a Literary Career - it's a book remarkably
free of whining - but she does suggest something about artistic careers
and social expectations toward women.

Steve Schwartz