The history of music at the Maison royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr — the famous convent school founded by Madame de Maintenon and established by Louis XIV in 1686 as a royal foundation — is both rich and intriguing; its large repertory of music was composed expressly for young female voices by important composers working within significant contemporary musical genres: liturgical chant, sacred motets, theatrical music, and cantiques spirituels. While these genres reflect contemporary styles and trends, at the same time the works themselves were made to conform to the sensibilities and abilities of their intended performers. Even as Jean-Baptiste Moreau's music for Jean Racine’s biblical tragedies Esther and Athalie shows a number of similarities to contemporary tragédies lyriques, it departs from that more public genre in its brevity, generally simpler solo writing, and the integral use of the chorus. The musical style of the choral numbers closely parallels that of other choral music in the repertory at Saint-Cyr. The liturgical chant sung in the church was composed by Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, and is an example of plain-chant musical, a type of new ecclesiastical composition written during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, primarily for female religious communities in France. The large repertory of petits motets (short sacred Latin pieces for solo voice), mostly composed by Nivers and Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, are simpler and more restrained than works by their contemporaries. A close study of the motets reveals much about changes to musical style and performance practices at Saint-Cyr during the eighteenth century. The cantique spirituel, a song with a spiritual text in the vernacular French language, played a significant role in both the education and recreation of the girls at Saint-Cyr. Cantiques composed for the girls vary widely in terms of their style and difficulty, ranging from simple strophic melodies to more sophisticated works in the style of contemporary airs. In all cases, the stylistic features of the music for Saint-Cyr reflect a careful consideration of the needs and capabilities of the young singers of the school, as well as an awareness of the rigorous requirements of Madame de Maintenon, who kept a close watch over the propriety of all things relating to the piety, behavior, and image of her charges.

A study of the strategies by which sacred music and liturgy was used to legitimate Louis XIII's power.

First published in 1974, this landmark work quickly established itself as the definitive study of French music from 1581 to 1733, a period that included masters such as Marin Marais, Lully, Couperin, and Rameau. This expanded edition includes a bibliography of more than 1,300 works.

"Do look after my music!" Irene Wienawska Polowski exclaimed before her death in 1932. And from the urgency of that sentiment the authors here have taken their cue to reveal and "look after" the previously neglected contributions of women throughout the history of Western art music. The first work of its kind, Women Making Music presents biographies of outstanding performers and composers, as well as analyses of women musicians as a class, and provides examples of music from all periods including medieval chant, Renaissance song, Baroque opera, German lieder, and twentieth-century composition. Unlike most standard historical surveys, the book not only sheds light upon the musical achievements of women, it also illuminates the historical contexts that shaped and defined those achievements.

A century later, Josephine Lang, a prodigiously talented pianist and dedicated composer, participated at various times in the German Romantic world of lieder through her important arts salon. Lastly, the twentieth century brought forth two exceptional women: Baroness Maria Bach, a composer and pianist of twentieth-century Vienna's upper bourgeoisie and its brilliant musical milieu in the era of Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, and Erich Korngold; and Ann Schein, a brilliant and dauntless American piano prodigy whose career, ongoing today though only partially recognized, led her to study with the legendary virtuosos Arthur Rubinstein and Myra Hess.

First published in 2005, this title provides extensive knowledge on seventeenth-century music.

Uncovering Music of Early European Women (1250 – 1750) brings together nine chapters that investigate aspects of female music-making and musical experience in the medieval and early modern periods. Part I, "Notes from the Underground," treats the spirituality of women in solitude and in community. Parts II and III, "Interlude" and "Music for Royal Rivals," respond to Joan Kelly’s famous feminist question and suggest that women of a certain stature did have a Renaissance. Part IV, "Serenissime Sirene," plays with the notion of the allure of music and its risks in Venice during the Baroque. The process of uncovering requires close listening to women’s creative endeavors in an ongoing effort to piece together equitably the terrain of early music. Contributors include: Cynthia J. Cyrus, Claire Fontijn, Catherine E. Gordon, Laura Jeppesen, Eva Kuhn, Anne MacNeil, Jason Stoessel, Elizabeth Randell Upton, and Laurence Wuidar. An invaluable book for college students and scholars interested in the social and cultural meanings of women in early music.