Sophie Drinker

Sophie Lewis Drinker (born Sophie Lewis Hutchinson ; born August 24, 1888 in Haverford , Pennsylvania , † September 6, 1967 in Chestnut Hill , Pennsylvania) is an American founder of musicological research on women and gender.

“I had never been a feminist nor has anyone in my family tutored me in this train of thought. I took no part in the struggle for women suffrage. In fact, I was hardly aware that it was going on. At that point, I was absorbed in child-bearing, in the management of the household affairs, and in my hus-band's companionship. But the time came when some sleeping part of me awoke and had to be heeded. "

Life

Sophie and Henry Drinker

Sophie Drinker was born Sophie Lewis Hutchinson on August 24, 1888 in Haverford near Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). Her family had a high social status dating back to the 17th century. According to Ruth A. Solie (1997), the family was still not overly wealthy. Nevertheless, Sophie Hutchinson was brought up very nobly; The nannies and housekeeping staff took on the daily duties. As a child she took piano lessons and developed a general interest in music. Sophie Hutchinson was accepted into Bryn Mawr College after successfully completing her school career at St. Timothy's School, an exclusive private school in Maryland . But she decided against going to college, which seemed natural to her at the time.

In 1911 she married the lawyer Henry (nicknamed Harry) Sandwith Drinker Jr. and moved with him to Merion , Pennsylvania. Henry Drinker was happy and successful in his profession; But every free minute was devoted to music, a hobby that was almost as important to him as his actual profession. In addition to active music-making, he devoted himself to the translation of the German-language texts of vocal compositions by great composers into English. In addition to Schubert's songs and Haydn's Creation , these include a large number of works by Johann Sebastian Bach , including the Christmas Oratorio , the St. John Passion and the St. Matthew Passion .

From the beginning, the drinkers' married and family life was also characterized by making music together. The couple played the piano four hands, Henry Drinker gave all five children daily music lessons, and the whole family sat down regularly to sing together. Henry and Sophie Drinker attended musical events such as concerts, opera performances and music festivals as often as possible, and were subscribers to the Philadelphia Orchestra's concerts for 25 years . The Drinkers did not go to church, parties or similar social events. They did not read popular literature, did not watch such films, and did not even use a radio, although they could have afforded one - they did everything to have more time for their music. This also explains why Sophie Drinker had few friends, but all the more intellectual acquaintances with whom she was in lively (letter) contact.

Henry Drinker was involved in the musical public not only as a translator and editor of work texts, but also by organizing concerts and his active participation in the musical planning of various schools and universities. In 1928 the Drinkers built a new house that contained a large music room. Here they organized regular singing evenings, and occasionally they made the premises available to the American Musicological Society for their meetings.

The Singing Parties in the Drinker house developed into a tradition that lasted for over 30 years. At first they comprised a small group of around 20 people, which gradually expanded until around 150 invited singers regularly gathered. At times she accompanied a string ensemble of around 8-10 players, at other times they were content with piano accompaniment, which was performed alternately by three choir members. Well-known musicians from the Curtis Institute or the Philadelphia Orchestra were often invited. They agreed - often without payment - to participate in the practice evenings. Over the years, the Drinker family has estimated that up to 3,000 participants have participated. Most of the rehearsals were conducted by Henry Drinker, and he and his wife also selected the music. Since the costs and efforts were borne by them alone, the other contributors had no say. Performances were neither organized nor intended; Henry and Sophie Drinker only allowed listeners or solo appearances in exceptional cases.

The singing evenings reflected Sophie Drinker's attitude towards amateur music, as illustrated in her book The Woman in Music:

"" We have got used to associating music with virtuosity , and we are in grave danger of forgetting that music in itself influences our feelings and thoughts and that its promotion, indeed its existence as art, is only justified, when it serves to fertilize and enrich the spiritual life of men and women. The most effective means to achieve this goal is to experience how music comes to life in our throats and under our fingers. ""

- Sophie Drinker : from: Drinker 1955, p.157f.

Beyond these singing evenings, Sophie Drinker was still active in the women's choir "Montgomery Singers", whose rehearsals were also moved to the local music room after a short time. During her search for sheet music for this choir, Sophie Drinker's attention was drawn to the fact that there was little quality and high quality music for female choirs, and that there were generally no women among the composers. This prompted her to do extensive research on women and their position in music history . She presented her findings in the book Music and Women: The Story of Women in Their Relation to Music , which appeared in 1948. Although this work is not a professional academic treatise, it is of great importance for music research - especially for the field of gender research in music - and can be seen as an important contribution to the lack of equality of women in to make the public aware of music. In particular, the new edition from 1995, with an afterword by Ruth A. Solie, contributed to this; The translation by Karl and Irene Geiringer from 1955 is of great importance for the German-speaking world.

The argumentation structure of the book is outdated today and worthy of criticism from a musicological point of view as well as from the point of view of current gender research. However, it gets its special status from the fact that it deals with a topic that at the time had hardly been researched - and has not yet been adequately researched. Sophie Drinker was awarded her doctorate in 1949 for her studies by Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

It was very unusual for a woman in her social position to be so active in this cause. It would have been more appropriate to the circumstances at that time to look for one or two protégés and to support them financially and ideally. Today it is occasionally criticized that Sophie Drinker dealt with the circumstances of the past instead of supporting musicians of her time. Ruth A. Solie (1995), on the other hand, sees Drinker's special achievement in the fact that she did not allow herself to be limited to promoting an individual fate, but tried to make the music world aware of the topic and to encourage women to recapture what was lost.

During her life, Sophie Drinker published other works, including the book Brahms and His Women's Choruses (1952) and the article What Price Women's Chorus? for the Music Journal 1954. Here she developed criteria that compositions for women's choirs should meet in her opinion: the use of the full range of the female voice, the representativeness of the composition for the respective musical period in which it was created, the emphasis on adult-friendly text content through melody and harmony as well as the uniqueness of the overall result in the sense that a similar result could not be achieved through any other medium than a women's choir.

Sophie Drinker wrote her memoirs in 1965, but they were intended for her family and have therefore remained unpublished.

She died of cancer on September 6, 1967. Despite her illness, she had not let up in her research for a new book (on the effects of colonial rights on women). However, this work could not be finished by her.

plant

In her major work Music and Women: The Story of Women In Their Relation to Music , Sophie Drinker examines the relationship between women and music throughout history. It remains as general as the title suggests. Aspects that were particularly important to Sophie Drinker and which she emphasizes again and again in the book are the human need for artistic development, the connection between music and religion and - in connection with this - the outstanding role of women as the bringer of life in religion . From this female role, Sophie Drinker derives a woman's natural talent for creating new musical works.

From today's perspective, it is critical to consider that Drinker's argument is based on the woman's childbearing potential. In her day, however, many of the thoughts laid down and the intent behind this book were extraordinary. The actual question underlying the book, in which form of society women musicians can achieve the same status as musicians, is and remains topical to this day.

estate

Documents and materials from Sophie Drinker's estate are in the Sophia Smith Collection of the University of Massachusetts (Sophie Hutchinson Drinker Papers), as well as in the Schlesinger Library (Radcliff College in Cambridge, Massachusetts). Some materials can be found in specialty collections at the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania .

The Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen

In 2002 Freia Hoffmann , professor at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg and still director of the institute, founded the Sophie Drinker Institute for musicological research on women and gender together with Eva Rieger . The institute was named after Sophie Drinker because, like her, it has set itself the task of thoroughly researching the role of women in music (history) and collecting and evaluating related materials and making them available to the public. One focus of the work of the institute is therefore on the development of various relevant databases.

In addition to a library, which also includes a large collection of essays, an extensive sheet music collection and a media library are available to musicological researchers. Not least with regard to the promotion of young scientists, there is a cooperation with the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg .

When the institute opened in 2002, musicologist Ruth A. Solie, professor at Smith College, Massachusetts, gave a talk on Sophie Drinker. This lecture was not only the prelude to the research work of the institute, but also to a musical-scientific lecture series that has meanwhile established itself in the institute's premises. The largest current research project of the Sophie Drinker Institute deals with the lexical recording of outstanding European female instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Works

• Music and women: the story of women in their relation to music . New York 1948.
• Brahms and his women's choruses . Merion 1952.
• What Price Women's Choruses? , in: Musical Journal 12/1 , (1954), pp.19 & 42f.
• The woman in music. A sociological study . Zurich: Atlantis 1955. (German translation: Karl and Irene Geiringer).
• Hanna Penn and the proprietorship of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia: Priv. print. under the auspices of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 1958.
• with Henry S. Drinker: Accademia dei dilettanti di musica: 1930-1960 .
• with Eugenie Andruss Leonard, Miriam Young Holden: The American Woman in colonial and Revolutionary times, 1565-1800: a syllabus with bibliography . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1962.

literature

• Abel-Struth, Sigrid: Review of The Woman in Music . In: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik , No. 118, 1957, p. 580.
• Blom, Eric (Ed.): Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Volume II. London: Macmillan & Co, 19545.
• Bowen, Catherine (Drinker): Family Portrait . Boston & Toronto: Little Brown & Company, 1970 (especially pp. 55-67, pp. 175-202).
• Bowers, Jane M .: Women and the American Musicological Society: Pioneering Scholars and Officers . In: Markus Grassl / Cornelia Szabó-Knotik (ed.): Women in musicology / women in musicology . Documentation of the international workshop Vienna 1998. Vienna: Federal Ministry for Science and Transport (BMWV), 1999, pp. 117–164, (from there v. A. Pp. 129–131).
• Drinker, Henry S. Jun .: Singing together for musical experience . in: Music and Letters Vol. XIV, No.4 , 1933, pp. 364-368.
• Engelbrecht, Christiane: Sophie Drinker: The woman in music. A sociological study . (Review). in: Die Musikforschung 9 , 1956, p. 380.
• Geiringer, Karl: Sophie Drinker . in: Journal of the American musicological society. Vol. XXI, No.3 , 1986, p. 409.
• Locke, Ralph P .: Paradoxes of the Woman Music Patron in America . in: The Musical Quarterly 78, No. 4 , 1994, pp. 798-825 (vaS807).
• Müller, Gisela A .: A double case study: Sophie H. Drinker and Ruth A. Solie , in: Markus Grassl / Cornelia Szabó-Knotik (ed.): Frauen in der Musikwissenschaft / women in musicology . Documentation of the international workshop Vienna 1998. Vienna: Federal Ministry for Science and Transport (BMWV) 1999, pp. 223–238.
• Schalz-Laurenze, Ute: women in music. the sophie drinker institute for musicological women and gender studies . In: New magazine for music . Issue 5, 2004, pp. 58-59.
• Silbert, Doris: Music and Women . (Book review). In: The Musical Quarterly XXXIV , 1948, pp. 285-288.
• Solie, Ruth A .: Sophie Drinker's History . in: Bergeron, Katherine / Bohlman, Philip V. ( Philip V. Bohlman ) (eds.): Disciplining Music. Musicology and its canons . Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press 1992, pp. 23-41.
• Solie, Ruth A .: Women's History and Music History: The Feminist Historiography of Sophie Drinker . in: Journal of Women's History . Vol. 5, Issue 2, 1993, pp. 8-31.
• Solie, Ruth A .: Sophie Drinker's Achievement . in: Drinker, Sophie: Music & Women. The story of women in their relation to music . New York: The Feminist Press at The City University of New York 1995 (preface by Elizabeth Wood, Afterword by Ruth A. Solie), pp. 325–382 (afterword to the new edition).
• Solie, Ruth A .: Culture, Feminism, and the Sacred. Sophie Drinker's Musical Activism , in: Locke, Ralph P. and Cyrilla Barr: Cultivating Music in America. Women Patrons and Activists since 1860 , Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press 1997, pp. 266–288.
• Solie, Ruth A .: Drinker, Sophie Lewis , in: Sadie, Stanley (ed.): The New Groove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Macmillan Publishers Limited 2002², pp. 596f.

Web links

• Sophie Drinker Institute: Sophie Drinker (1888-1967)

See also

• Women in music

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sophie Drinker quoted from Ruth A. Solie (1993), p. 20.