For my research, I wanted to explore more about a noticable women cellist of the XIXth century but unkown nowadays. That’s how I discovered Lisa Cristiani.
(b Paris, Dec 24, 1827; d Tobolsk, 1853). French cellist, possibly of Italian descent. She achieved fame as a performer, at a time when women performers were rare, and as the owner of the very fine Stradivari cello of 1700 which still bears her name. She made tours of Europe where she met Adrien-François Servais and Russia. […] Mendelssohn accompanied her at a concert in Leipzig on 18 October 1845; his Song without Words op.109 no.38 (posthumous) was written the same year and dedicated to her. The King of Denmark appointed her the title of ‘Chamber Virtuosa’. In 1853 she travelled east on tour; she contracted cholera in Siberia and died within a few days. [1]
I think it’s important to highlight how rare it was for a female to be a professional cellist at that time, because of ethical mindset reasons.
“Carl Ludwig Junker, a German composer and priest, provided a significant article in 1783, in which he looked at the appearance of women playing the various instruments; He was embarrassed to see women playing the violin, cello or horn – the cello in particular where the musician pressed her breasts on the instrument and spread her legs – and advised women to stick to the piano, guitar and harp (Hoffmann, 1991).” [2]
« Two arguments were commonly used to prohibit, or less to make it more difficult for women to access the practice of certain instruments of music. Through the myths and characters of the ancient world, we evoked the appearance physical and feminine morality. According to a common opinion at the time, wind instruments made women ugly by distorting their faces during play. Then, the playing position is quite suggestive: having an instrument in the mouth or placed on the lips was considered as erotic, even indecent, and could call into question the woman’s morality who engaged in such a practice. The discourse on bowed instruments was less sexualized as they would be in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. They concentrated on the unsightly posture when carrying an instrument under the chin and, in some cases, on the fact that the woman is obliged to spread her legs in order to play the cello or the bass viol. » [3]
Here is the last third of Lisa Cristiani’s biographie available in the Grove [1:1] :
“She was enthusiastically received, though her beauty and personal charm undoubtedly contributed to her success. She is said to have performed her repertory of salon pieces sympathetically and elegantly, with small tone but precise intonation.”
I think it’s interesting to notice that in Lisa Cristiani’s very short biographie, almost one third of it described her beauty and nice character. We can also notice that nowadays, criticies about women musical performances’ are noticeably the same.
Grove article, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06832 ↩︎ ↩︎
Florence Launay, « Les Musiciennes : de la pionnière adulée à la concurrente redoutée » in Travail, genre et société, 2008/1 ↩︎
Imyra Santana, Les femmes instrumentistes en France au XVIIIe siècle : professionnalisation et carrières, thesis, p122 ↩︎