Women

Last week, in Manhattan, the Women's Symphony Orchestra of America filed papers of incorporation. The capital was named at $250,000; number of players, 60; conductor, Madame Elizabeth Kuyper, Dutch musician. A month ago, in London, the British Women's Symphony Orchestra gave a concert, played Handel, Saint-Saens, Beethoven, Weber with competency. Musical people who read of these events in the press began to ask questions about women conductors, women orchestra players.

Orchestras composed entirely of women are no longer novel. In 1896, the Women's String Orchestra Society of New York was organized, played for seven seasons with success; a Women's String Quartet was acclaimed, in Manhattan, in 1897. There have been innumerable famed women composers, instrumental virtuosos, of every nationality--Clara Schumann, wife of the great German composer, Robert Schumann; Mrs. Chazal, English composer, pianist; Carlotta Ferrari, foremost woman composer of Italy; Teresa Carreiia, Venezuela. Ethel Leginska has frequently been given public attention when she conducted orchestras (TIME, Jan. 19). A woman, Saint Cecelia, is the patron saint of Music. At all these notable women, male musicians have sniffed now and again. Other women, or sympathetic males, resenting the sniffs, have taken up arms, started anew the age-old controversy: "Should women confine their fiddling to the home? Is Love's Old Sweet Song the most ambitious composition that any female, however talented, should attempt to render?" Such questions are, of course, absurd; nor are there many remaining critics who can establish a reputation for mordacity by frequent quotation of Ruskin's remark that it is the province of man to create and woman to praise. Nevertheless, the fact remains that while orchestras of women are usually adequate, adeptly trained, they are seldom impressive.