As a recent New York Times article highlighted, female composers have historically been neglected. I have no intention of allowing that to be the case in my course on the Bible and music. And soย this post is not only intended to share some examples of settings of Biblical texts by women (and to be clear, it will not in any sense try to include every composition or composer I know of), but also to invite readers to share pieces that they know of and consider significant,ย to make sure I donโt miss them.ย Hildegard of Bingen must of course feature prominently. But there are many others, some famous, some less so.ย And so hereโs a selection:
Fanny Mendelssohnโs โOratorium nach den Bildern der Bibelโ:
Lili Boulangerโs settings of Psalms, such as this one:
Sofia Gubaidulinaโs โThe Last Seven Wordsโ:
Parableby Judith Lang Zaimont:
Anne Dudleyโs โThe Testimony of Johnโ:
Roxanna Panufnikโs โLove Endurethโ:
Roberta Bitgoodโs works, such as โThe Greatest of These is Loveโ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEXTOLqULjkElisabeth Lutyenโs Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis:
There are others which I simply did not find on YouTube to include here but would have liked to,ย including works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Kaija Saariaho, Violet Archer, Louise Talma,ย Emma Lou Diemer,ย Marion Dix Sullivan,ย Daria Semegen,ย Thรฉrรจse Brenet, Yardena Alotin,ย and others. And of course, the course is not limited to โclassicalโ music. Hereโs โPsalm 69โ by Louise Calixte:
What others would you include?