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otherwise) cannot be deduced by simply applying the characteristics of a gendered construct to a
body of work. 4
MacArthur explains that feminist musicologists, such as Eva Reiger, Marcia Citron, and
Susan McClary, attempt to find ways to differentiate women’s music without ghettoizing it or
relying on vague stereotypes, realizing that the influences on style and composition, as well as
gender identity, may be indefinable, even to the composer herself. As an example of one way to
overcome this, MacArthur explains McClary’s research method:
…McClary chooses to analyze music by contemporary women
composers and performance artists who are concerned with their
own representations as women in the music that they write and/or
perform. 5
However, I do not believe that we must limit ourselves to the study of contemporary women,
particularly in the case of Madalena Casulana, who, through her writings, revealed a level of
self-awareness of and concern for her representation as a woman and composer. Her dedication
to Isabella de’Medici invites the researcher to view her as a woman composer with a desire to
express the validity of her music as a female work of high intellect, not a feminine equivalent of
a masculine achievement. I find the phrasing of Casulana’s stated intent to be very important in
discerning her purpose in composing and her self-understanding as a woman and composer. She
states:
I would like, which would be, other than to give Your Excellence
some proof of my devotion, to show also to the world (as much as
is allowed me in this musical profession) the conceited error of
men. They believe so strongly to be the masters of the high gifts of
4 Sally Macarthur, Feminist Aesthetics in Music (London: Greenwood Press, 2002), 12-19.
5 Ibid, 19.
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