Music Theory for the “Weaker Sex”: Oliveria Prescott’s Columns for The Girl’s Own Paper

In this article, I examine a cluster of music theory essays by Oliveria Louisa Presco (1842–1917), which were published between 1886 and 1891 in The Girl’s Own Paper (TGOP), the most popular periodical for young women in Victorian England. Although li le known today, Presco sustained a vibrant musical career in London as a composer and teacher, and her articles on music theory regularly appeared in major periodicals such as The Musical World and TGOP. Presco ’s work for TGOP presents a rare opportunity to explore music theory that was not just wri en by a woman, but also intended for a genteel female audience in the Victorian era. Her articles include explanations of fundamental theoretical subjects (cadences, basic harmonic progressions) as well as short analyses of solo piano works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn. But these articles are also noteworthy for their discussions of more advanced theoretical topics (such as chromatic harmony), concepts that might seem surprising for a popular periodical for young ladies. Mainstream journalism is often devalued as a “less serious” form of intellectual discourse, but Presco ’s work complicates stereotypes of ignorant amateur female musicians and the so-called “private” sphere, and it demonstrates how print journalism could serve as a vital public platform for the circulation of music theory among young British women in the Victorian era. DOI: 10.30535/mto.26.3.4 Volume 26, Number 3, September 2020 Copyright © 2020 Society for Music Theory [1.1] If you’ve ever enjoyed the guilty pleasure of flipping through a popular magazine for young women from the 1980s, you’ll recall being bombarded by a bewildering gush of suggestions, guidance, and propaganda about what “womanhood” is supposed to be. Popular magazines like Seventeen or YM offer an unrelenting barrage of content that a empts to shape and influence young women: tips about clothing, makeup, and hair-styling; portraits of famous actors and hit-making musicians; and even advice on urgent day-to-day issues like “how to be the best kisser” or “how to be popular.” As a 1988 tagline from Seventeen claims, its pages are “where the girl ends and the woman begins.” [1.2] To the modern reader, it probably does not come as much of a surprise that these popular magazines do not include in-depth information about music theory and analysis. But young women’s periodicals published a century earlier, in the late nineteenth century, reflect a different perspective that prioritizes music as an important part of young women’s education and development. In the late 1880s, The Girl’s Own Paper (the most popular periodical for young women in England) ran a short series of articles on music theory and analysis by Oliveria Louisa Presco (1842–1917). Presco ’s work for The Girl’s Own Paper is significant for several reasons. As an early historical example of “public” music theory, her articles illustrate one of the primary rewards of public work in the humanities—the chance to reach a wider, more diverse audience. J. Daniel Jenkins describes how public music theory involves “an eclectic collection of scholarship, journalism, podcasts, videocasts, and other various items” that are “accessible to a general public” (2017, paragraph 3). In recent years, scholars have revealed important insights about the myriad ways that public music theory has helped educate audiences; this scholarship has also expanded contemporary conceptions of what music theory is and what music theorists do.(1) However, this research has largely focused on contributions since the 1950s. Presco ’s articles thus offer an earlier, nineteenth-century perspective on public music-theory making. Finally, her writings present a rare opportunity to examine music theory that was not just wri en by a woman, but specifically intended for a female audience during the Victorian era. [1.3] This article is organized into four main parts. Since Presco and The Girl’s Own Paper are unfamiliar to most readers, I begin with a short introductory section that provides a brief biographical sketch and background information on the periodical. Second, I consider how she uses gendered metaphors to explain basic theoretical concepts. Third, I turn to some of the more advanced theoretical content in these articles, including voice leading and chromatic harmony, examining how her articles contain a level of theoretical detail that is surprising for a magazine for young women, and not found in other contemporaneous analyses of the same pieces in the British press. I conclude by discussing her emphasis on the importance of theoretical understanding for women, and how her views intersect with contemporaneous debates about the changing status of women in late nineteenth-century Britain. Biographical Sketch of Presco and Background on “The Girl’s Own Paper” [2.1] Presco is li le-known today, but in her time she was an accomplished composer, pedagogue, and theorist.(2) The youngest child in a wealthy London family, she entered the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) as a composition student in 1871; the registration record noted that she was “very talented.”(3) At the RAM, she studied composition with George Macfarren (their professional relationship will be discussed in more detail in section 4, below). Presco was a successful student: she earned a Bronze Medal in harmony in 1875 (“Royal Academy of Music” 1875, 171), a Silver Medal in harmony in 1877 (“Royal Academy of Music” 1877b, 391), and a Certificate of Merit in harmony in 1879 (Gwffyn 1879, 473). She apparently valued her years at the RAM, as she later established the “Oliveria Presco Prize,” an annual award that provided distinguished composition students with orchestral scores (Example 1).(4) [2.2] Presco sustained an active and multifaceted musical career for more than three decades. Her orchestral and chamber works were performed in concerts during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, and some of her music was published, although many of her pieces (especially her large-scale orchestral works) have not survived.(5) Presco was featured in an 1887 article on women composers in The Englishwoman’s Review; the author emphasized that “although the name of Miss Presco is not so prominently before the British public as that of many ladies who have achieved success as composers through some ephemeral melodious trifles, from an artistic point of view her career is of more interest, owing to the high standard she has hitherto retained in her compositions” (de Ternant 1887, 59). Presco gained some recognition for her compositions: her Symphony in B flat, one of the first symphonies composed by a British woman, received third place (“high commendation”) in the Alexandra Palace Symphony Competition in 1876 (Fuller 2018, 155; “Notes” 1876, 265).(6) During her years at the Academy, Presco completed several other largescale works that were performed on RAM concerts at St. James’s Hall, including her Overture in C minor (“Tithonus”), Symphony in D minor (“Alkestis”), and Magnificat.(7) Unfortunately performances of Presco ’s orchestral music dwindled after her years at the RAM; her orchestral music was never published, and has been lost.(8) One of the few instrumental pieces that has survived is a piano duet arrangement of her Concert Finale (Example 2), a lighter, more popularlyoriented work originally for piano and orchestra that (as the score’s title page notes) was “composed for the end of a miscellaneous programme.”(9) [2.3] Presco was also directly involved with several professional organizations for British musicians. During the 1890s, she was the only woman who served on the Council of the Musical Artists’ Society, an organization that planned concerts and performances in London (Fuller 2018, 156).(10) She was also a charter member and active participant in the Musical Association, an academic society founded in 1874 “for the investigation and discussion of subjects connected with the art and science of music” (Proceedings 1874–1875).(11) Presco ’s name occurs frequently in the published Proceedings of the Musical Association: she regularly a ended monthly meetings in the 1880s and 1890s, was an active participant in the question-and-answer sessions following the paper presentations, and presented a paper herself in 1892, entitled “Musical Design, a Help to Poetic Intention.” Presco was the second of only four women presenters in the first twenty-five years of the Association’s monthly meetings, and the only woman who presented a paper on a theoretical topic during these years (Example 3). Her work seems to have been positively received: during the discussion following Presco ’s paper, the session chair H. C. Banister thanked Presco for her “interesting and admirable paper,” which he described as “most intelligently and intelligibly” presented (Presco 1891–1892, 133–34).(12) [2.4] Presco also worked as a music teacher at the Church of England High School for Girls, and taught correspondence courses in music for Newnham College.(13) She maintained her ties to the Academy, serving as amanuensis to George Macfarren, and helped transcribe music and select text passages for his 1883 oratorio King David.(14) Macfarren dedicated his earlier oratorio Joseph (1877) to her, noting in the front ma er of the score: “In remembrance of happy hours spent in its inscription, this oratorio is dedicated by the composer to his pupil, friend, and amanuensis, Oliveria Louisa Presco .” [2.5] But Presco ’s most prolific and interesting contributions were as a writer on music; in many ways, she was a late nineteenth-century example of a public music theorist. In the 1880s alone, she wrote more than fifty articles for major periodicals such as The Musical World and The Musical News. Some of her work as a public music theorist was eventually published in book form: a selection of her articles from The Musical World were reprinted as Form, Or Design, In Music (1882), and material from a six-week