Listen Wider Challenge 2020

16. An instrumental work from before 1750 written by a woman

The challenge this week is to find instrumental music by women from before 1750. While female composers were not unheard of in any period, throughout much of European history, few women had access to the training and opportunities to compose, and many of the exceptions wrote vocal music, especially music for convents. In fact, even among the instrumental composers on this week's playlist, a striking number took vows and entered convents at some point in their lives. The earliest items on the list are early keyboard arrangements of works originally intended to be vocal, or where the identity of the composer isn't a certainty. Also on this list are a harmonically striking violin sonata by the first woman to publish in that genre and a concerto by the Princess of Prussia. 

To come up with some names of early female composers, I started with Grove Music Online, a good go-to starting place for music research. There's no way to browse entries by gender, but there are some great focused resources under the "Tools and Resources" tab.