Antonio Maria Bononcini

 by Georg Predota  July 8th, 2026

In the Shadow of a Famous Brother

The Italian cellist and composer Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677-1726) was part of a distinguished musical family based in Modena, Italy. He worked closely with his older brother in Vienna, and crowned his career as maestro di cappella in his hometown.

To commemorate the 300th anniversary of his death on 8 July 1726, let us briefly explore the life of a musician who spent much of his career serving aristocratic and court patrons.   

The House of Bononcini

Giovanni Maria Bononcini

The Bononcini family was one of the great musical dynasties of late 17th- and early 18th-century Italy. In particular, the family’s musical reputation rests primarily on the father and his two sons.

The father, Giovanni Maria Bononcini (1642-1678), was a violinist, composer, and theorist. He was active in Modena, where he became court violinist and later maestro di cappella at the cathedral.

He was particularly important in helping to refine instrumental music in church and chamber sonatas before the emergence of Corelli. He also authored an influential handbook on counterpoint and composition, the Musico prattico of 1673.   

The Famous Brother

Portrait of the composer Giovanni Bononcini

His eldest son, Giovanni Bononcini (1670-1747), was by far the most famous. He was a cellist, singer, and prolific opera composer who enjoyed spectacular success in Rome, Vienna, and especially London.

His operas, particularly Il trionfo di Camilla, helped spread Italian opera seria across Europe, and he was admired for his lyrical melody and graceful vocal writing.

He achieved international and lasting historical fame as a rival to Handel in London, where he produced eight operas, including the successful Astarto, Crispo, and Griselda. His simple and fluent melodic style was particularly popular with London audiences.  

A Gifted Younger Brother

Antonio Maria Bononcini

And that brings us to Antonio Maria Bononcini (1677-1726), the gifted younger brother. The famous Padre Martini judged his style to be “so elevated, lively, artful and delightful, that he is distinguished above most early 18th-century composers.”

Together with his brother Giovanni, Antonio Maria was considered by contemporaries to be one of the most outstanding cello virtuosi of his time. Today, both are best known as exceptional composers of vocal music and important representatives of the elegant and melodically driven “galant” style.

After receiving musical instructions from their father, the brothers furthered their studies in Bologna. Between 1690 and 1693, both played in the orchestra of Cardinal Pamphili, the papal legate in the city.  

“Sig. Bononcini”

Since Giovanni and Antonio Maria worked alongside in Bologna, in Rome, and later in Vienna, it is often difficult to distinguish the true author of compositions attributed to “Sig. Bononcini.”

By 1694, Bononcini was active as a cellist in Rome, and during that period, he or his elder brother performed at six events sponsored by Cardinal Ottoboni. Scholars suggest that Antonio Maria’s music is generally more virtuosic and elaborate in style than his elder brother’s.

In his collection of twelve sonatas dating to around 1693, Antonio Maria makes frequent use of tremolos, double-stopping, and repeated notes. His use of chords, rapid ornamentations, and treacherously difficult echo effects is characteristic and common to practically all the movements of this collection.  

Imperial Patronage

Around 1700, Antonio joined his brother in Vienna, and Telemann heard them perform in Berlin in 1702. The Bononcini brothers were part of a new generation of Italian composers who brought the latest musical styles to Vienna.

Antonio Maria was first commissioned to compose for the Viennese court in 1705. When he began his service to the Habsburg emperor, he was still a young and little-known composer. Emperor Joseph I held Giovanni Bononcini in high esteem, and he extended the same honour to Antonio.

Between 1705 and 1711, Antonio composed 13 cantatas, six festive serenatas, four two-part oratorios, and a three-act opera. The cellist Antonio distinguished himself as one of the generation’s most gifted composers of dramatic vocal music.  

The Viennese Cantatas

Antonio Bononcini: Chamber Cantatas

The cantatas by Antonio Maria represent the new Italian style flourishing at the Viennese court. Scholars identify innovation in form, design features, affective harmony, melody, and rhythm. For some, Antonio’s compositional style reveals a composer of superior craftsmanship and imagination compared to the more famous Giovanni.

To be sure, the cantatas feature intricate textures, finely woven counterpoint, and extensive sequential development. Many of the arias are in minor keys, frequently featuring dotted rhythms, chromatic harmonies, and angular melodic lines.

Antonio was named a “composer to the emperor” in 1710, but when Joseph died of smallpox, his older brother, Charles VI, did not retain the Bononcinis. The brothers returned to Italy, and Antonio married Eleonora Suterin, who bore him four sons and a daughter.  

Final Years and Legacy

Antonio Bononcini: Cello Sonatas

Antonio continued to write operas for Venice, Rome, and cities ruled by the Austrian emperor. It has been observed that these works resemble Vivaldi in style. Although he incorporated some “galant” features, none of his dramatic works received subsequent productions.

For the last five years of his life, Bononcini was appointed maestro di cappella at the court in Modena, and he composed an extant mass setting and the Stabat mater. He ended his career in relative stability and died in his hometown of Modena on 8 July 1726.

While Antonio Maria was highly respected in his own time, he eventually slipped into the shadow of his more famous brother. However, more recent scholarship increasingly regards him as a gifted composer in his own right.

Three hundred years after his death, we remember a virtuoso cellist and composer who made significant contributions to the musical life of northern Italy, Rome, and Vienna during a period of stylistic transition in European music.

Superstar Pedagogy The Lang Lang Piano Method

by Georg Predota  June 14th, 2026

Sports fans wear the shirts of their idols, and classical music has never entirely escaped the cult of personality either. Few classical musicians in modern times, with the possible exception of Liberace, have embraced celebrity quite as enthusiastically as Lang Lang.

There is branded merchandise, the carefully scripted aura of fashion and luxury, and, of course, the flamboyant stage persona. Combined with an unhappy and traumatic childhood, and you’ve got a classical rags to riches story.

I have personally seen Lang Lang grinning from t-shirts, but many youngsters can now encounter his animated cartoon personality in the Lang Lang Piano Method.

To commemorate his birthday on 14 June, it is worth asking what this piano primer does for the piano community: does it give back, or does it simply borrow yet another page from the superstar playbook?  

Join the Superhero

The Lang Lang Piano Method, Preparatory Level (Faber Music)

First things first: I am not a piano teacher, and my personal instruction relied on established methods. I have also lived long enough to understand that things have changed, and that entire generations have never known a time without the internet or digital technology.

Lang Lang introduced his Piano Method as part of the “Lang Lang Piano Academy” with Faber Music in 2016. According to the pianist, it is designed to inspire the next generation of pianists by making the piano feel accessible rather than intimidating.

There are five levels, each with a printed or downloadable book, downloadable audio files, material for teachers, answer sheets, QR codes for quick access, and certificates of completion so you can join the “superhero world of Lang Lang.”

He believes that children should not be faced with nothing but scales and arpeggios, and that joy should always come before discipline. In this case, joy takes the form of a cartoon Lang Lang, whose own voice takes young pianists through each section.  

Education Vision

Lang Lang

There seems to be a cultural element behind it, as Lang Lang sees his method not as a tool to produce concert pianists, but as a way of exposing millions of children to music-making. “Learning an instrument can be a really important part of a child’s development and a great way to improve many things like concentration and focus.” (Faber Music, 2016)

This piano primer is one aspect of the “Lang Lang International Music Foundation,” founded in 2008. In the prospectus, we read: “We believe that all children should have access to music and music education, regardless of their background or circumstances.”

“At the Lang Lang International Music Foundation®, we strive to educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of music lovers and performers. By igniting a child’s passion for music, we are helping children worldwide aim for a better future.”   

A Teacher’s Legacy

Gary Graffman and Lang Lang

If we’re talking about superstar branding versus artistic philanthropy, we should also remember that Lang Lang received much of his musical training from his much-revered teacher, Gary Graffman, who recently passed away. Teaching Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, and other highly talented Asian youngsters, Graffman didn’t simply teach them to play the piano. Rather, he also instilled in them a sense of giving back to the community.

Graffman was a strong advocate of the arts and arts education, and a few years ago, he wrote something that now feels almost prophetic. “I’d like to add that this diminishment of ALL education in the USA over two generations might help to explain, and perhaps even partially excuse, the uninformed utterances emanating from the mouths of too many of our elected representatives, as well as their complete lack of knowledge or interest in anything to do with the arts.”

“In fact, it would not be at all surprising if many of those representatives who received our typical public education during the last four or five decades have hardly ever, if at all, chosen to visit an art museum or to attend an opera, the ballet or a symphony concert.” (Graffman, Slipped Disc, 2015)  

Inspiration Versus Instruction

Lang Lang with young piano students

I believe that the “Lang Lang Piano Academy” and the “Lang Lang International Music Foundation” are some of the clearest legacies of Gary Graffman’s teaching influence. The Lang Lang Piano Method is probably not the pedagogical blueprint to build Lang Lang clones, but if it inspires more young people to develop a lasting curiosity about music and the arts, we should probably welcome the contribution.

In the reviews by users, the series is called accessible, with specific praise for the Time for a Break audio sections, where Lang Lang plays music purely for its enjoyment value. Some teachers use the books to supplement their usual books, while some teachers are highly resistant to the online/downloadable nature of the project.

And if I personally never have to see Lang Lang perform again, it’s wonderful to see him engaging with young players. We can’t continue to let our classical audiences grey out the attendance; we need to get young students to feel the excitement of music.

As for its pedagogical effectiveness, I will leave that to professional piano teachers to decide.

When Sokolov Listens The Rise of Alexandra Dovgan (Born on July 1, 2007)

 by Georg Predota  July 1st, 2026

The Russian pianist Alexandra Dovgan had already collected five competition victories by the age of thirteen, receiving her technical and musical training under Mira Marchenko at Moscow’s Central Music School.

Beyond prizes and accolades, Dovgan has also attracted the attention of Grigory Sokolov, who became an important artistic mentor and advocate. To celebrate Dovgan’s birthday on 1 July, let’s explore the artistic connection between the famously private Sokolov and one of the most compelling young pianists of her generation.

Alexandra Dovgan   

El País Semanal features on Sokolov and Dovgan

Alexandra Dovgan

The most comprehensive and well-researched account of the connection between Grigory Sokolov and Alexandra Dovgan comes from the Spanish author and journalist Jesús Ruiz Mantilla. He regularly publishes interviews, reports, profiles, and music criticism.

Ruiz also has a literary career, having published eight novels, essays, plays, and poems. In a weekend feature for El País, a major Spanish newspaper, Ruiz traces the artistic transmission between generations of Russian pianism by focusing on the almost mythical Sokolov and the exceptionally mature young pianist Alexandra Dovgan. (Mantilla, “Grigori Sokolov y Alexandra Dovgan,” El Pais Semanal 2021)  

First Encounter

Alexandra Dovgan and Grigory Sokolov

Apparently, Sokolov became aware of Dovgan when he was invited to look at a number of videos featuring new talents. While he typically listens to only a piece or two, in Dovgan’s case, he continued for nearly two hours.

Sokolov explained, “It’s not that I think the others were worse, but in her case, I discovered a link that connects her musical world with mine.” Sokolov wanted to meet her, and since then, they have exchanged ideas.

These meetings aren’t lessons, as Dovgan has her own teachers who train her exceptionally well, but according to Sokolov, it’s an “exchange between two colleagues.” Sokolov is a famously solitary man, devoted like a monk to his own constant refinement, so it is highly unusual for him to dedicate time to engage with other pianists.  

In Dialogue

Alexandra Dovgan at the piano

They first met in Amsterdam and barely exchanged a few words, but during their second meeting, they focused on understanding the instrument they would be playing. They discussed the age, the makers, and the materials of the piano, connecting the body and soul of the instrument to the expression of music.

They also considered the concept of tempo in compositions, and Dovgan recalled that “the maestro told her that she must be honest in every circumstance. Not only as a person and as a performer, but also that she must be very careful and faithful to the scores, and must thoroughly study the tempos.”

This, according to Sokolov, is where the magic of music lies and how he manages to hold the audience’s attention. “It’s about bringing music created in another time into this era and making it seem as if it’s being conceived in that very moment.”  

Sokolov’s endorsement of Dovgan

Alexandra Dovgan

Sokolov also introduced Dovgan to his longtime manager and producer, Franco Panozzo. He played him a sound recording of Dovgan’s performance of the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1, and Panozzo reportedly concluded that it was performed by a great artist.

He then showed him the video of the 12-year-old Dovgan, and Panozzo was speechless and immediately signed her. Sokolov still refuses to grant interviews about himself, but he has nothing but praise for Dovgan.

“At 13, she can hardly be called a child prodigy, because while she is a prodigy, it’s not child’s play. What one hears when watching her is the performance of an adult. It is a special pleasure for me to commend the artistry of her remarkable music teacher, Mira Marchenko. However, there are some things that cannot be taught or learned. Alexandra Dovgan’s talent is exceptionally harmonious. Her playing is honest and focused. I predict a great future for her.”

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

 

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

Maurice Ravel

The history of classical music, however, is full of fabulously gifted individuals with slightly more earthy ambitions. Love stories of classical composers are frequently retold within a romanticized narrative of sugarcoated fairy tales. To be sure, happily-ever-after stories do on rare occasions take place, but it is much more likely that classical romances lead to some rather unhappy endings. Johannes Brahms had an overriding fear of commitment, Claude Debussy drove his wife into an attempt at suicide, Francis Poulenc severely struggled with his sexual identity, and Percy Grainger was heavily into whips and bondage. And that’s only the beginning! The love life of classical composers will sometimes make you weep, or alternately shout out with joy or anguish. You might even cringe with embarrassment as we try to go beyond the usual headlines and niceties to discover the psychological makeup and the societal and cultural pressures driving these relationships. Classical composer’s love stories are not for the faint hearted; they are heightened reflections of humanity at its best and worst. Accompanying these stories of love and lust with the compositions they inspired, we are able to see composers and their relationships in a completely new light.

The 10 Strangest Instruments Composers Wrote For

 by Emily E. Hogstad  June 22nd, 2026

Classical music has never been as conservative as its stereotypes suggest.

Long before experimental music became a genre, composers were already employing unexpected objects on the concert stage: tools, machines, noisemakers, and more.

Here are some of the strangest instruments composers have written for – and the surprisingly serious music they appear in. Some of these instruments appear briefly; others dominate entire movements. All challenge our expectations of what belongs in a concert hall.

Glass Harmonica   

Invented in the 1760s and once believed to cause depression and anxiety, the glass harmonica produces an eerie, floating sound by rotating glass bowls touched with wet fingers.

The instrument fascinated Enlightenment thinkers, but eventually unnerved Romantic-era music lovers.

Glass harmonica

In the music journal Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, a musicologist warned that the glass harmonica “excessively stimulates the nerves, plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood, that is an apt method for slow self-annihilation.”

Late in his life, Mozart embraced the instrument, writing the Adagio and Rondo in C minor, K. 617 – one of the most haunting chamber works of the Classical era.

The glass harmonica’s pale, disembodied tone gives the piece an almost supernatural stillness. Its timbre is still unsettling, even today.

Cowbells 

Cowbells might seem rustic or even comical, but in the hands of late-Romantic composers, they evoke ideas of distance, memory, and the natural world.

Gustav Mahler famously used cowbells in both his sixth and seventh symphonies, instructing that they be played offstage.

That offstage effect is uncanny: a reminder of alpine landscapes and emotional isolation, ringing out from a misty, mysterious place beyond the orchestra.

A set of tuned cowbells

Cowbells were also employed in Richard Strauss‘s An Alpine Symphony, written about ten years after Mahler’s two symphonies. They help evoke the vastness – and perhaps indifference – of the mountains.

Typewriter   

Likely the most charming office equipment ever to appear in a concert hall, the typewriter became a star thanks to composer Leroy Anderson.

His short orchestral novelty piece “The Typewriter” turns clacks, dings, and carriage returns into a rhythmic solo part backed by an orchestra.

A typewriter

The piece is witty, impeccably timed – and far harder to perform than it looks!

Anvil    

The anvil entered classical music as a symbol of labour – and of the Romantic era’s transition from agrarian life to industrialisation.

In Giuseppe Verdi‘s opera Il trovatore, the famous “Anvil Chorus” uses real anvils struck onstage, anchoring the music in physical work and communal rhythm.

Small anvil

Richard Wagner went even further in his opera Das Rheingold, where multiple anvils create the thunderous soundscape of the hellish underground Nibelheim forge.  

Before sound effects went digital, composers had to invent them.

The wind machine – a rotating drum covered in fabric – appears prominently in Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, where Strauss depicts storms, altitude, and exposure with cinematic realism.

A historical wind machine (c. 1900) at the Konzerthaus in Ravensburg, Germany

It also shows up in Giacomo Puccini‘s La fanciulla del West, heightening the drama of the American frontier with howling wind.

Alphorn    

The alphorn, a long wooden horn associated with Swiss mountain traditions, has occasionally been featured in classical repertoire.

Swiss composer Jean Daetwyler (1907–1994) wrote multiple serious works for alphorn, integrating its raw, open intervals into orchestral and chamber contexts.

The sound is simultaneously noble and primitive, and unmistakably tied to the rural landscape.

Giant Hammer     

By the early 20th century, unusual instruments were no longer just evoking landscapes; they were being asked to represent fate itself.

Few instruments in classical music carry as much symbolic weight as the hammer in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6.

During a 2008 tour stop at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Cynthia Yeh, principal percussion, wields the hammer of fate as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler’s Symphony No. 6. Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg

Mahler called for a massive wooden hammer striking a resonant box, each blow representing a catastrophic stroke of fate.

Performances in this segment vary widely, with orchestras building custom hammers to achieve the right balance of force and resonance.

In the context of the symphony, it’s way more than a sound effect; it’s a catalyst of existential terror.

Theremin  

One of the earliest electronic instruments, the theremin, is played without physical contact, using hand movements to control pitch and volume.

Its wavering, voice-like tone would later become associated with science fiction soundtracks, but in early 20th-century concert music, it carried a stark, modernist intensity.

Clara Rockmore playing the theremin

Bohuslav Martinů wrote a Fantasia that incorporated the theremin into a work both lyrical and modernist.

Ping Pong Table   

During the 21st century, experimental instruments have fully entered the mainstream.

In 2017, composer Andy Akiho wrote a Concerto for Ping Pong, Percussion, Violin, and Orchestra, turning paddles, balls, and tables into legitimate solo instruments.

In this sense, Akiho’s concerto belongs to a long lineage of composers redefining what counts as an instrument.

The result is virtuosic, theatrical, and unexpectedly expressive.

We wrote all about it here.

Sirens (Mechanical or Hand-Cranked)

Sirens – a sound borrowed from factories and civil defence – became powerful symbols of modernity in early 20th-century music.

Arthur Honegger’s Pacific 231, named after a train, uses mechanical effects to evoke the sheer mass and motion of a steam locomotive.

Varèse also employed sirens in Amériques and Ionisation, where they cut through dense percussion textures like alarms from an industrial future.

The effect is jarring and metallic: a deliberate intrusion of the modern world into the concert hall.

Conclusion

These strange instruments aren’t gimmicks. They reflect composers pushing against the limits of orchestral sound, searching for realism, symbolism, or entirely new sonic worlds.

Classical music has always been experimental. Sometimes it just needs a hammer, a typewriter, or a ping pong table to prove it.

Ethel Leginska: The Woman Who Rewrote the Rules

 by Nico de Napoli  June 16th, 2026

History has a reliable habit of erasing women who made their mark – and the history of classical music is no exception. Some were too inconvenient to remember.

Ethel Leginska (13 April 1886 – 26 February 1970) was one of them.  

One of the most famous pianists in America in the 1920s, she conducted major orchestras on two continents and founded multiple symphony orchestras. She also composed two operas and a substantial body of orchestral, chamber music and solo piano works. Yet you have almost certainly never heard of her.

Leginska was born Ethel Liggins in 1886 in Hull, a working-class port city in the northeast of England – the kind of place where, at the time, a girl with a gift for the piano was more likely to end up entertaining at church socials than performing in the world’s great concert halls.

The daughter of a builder and a governess, Ethel was different. By the age of six, she was performing entire concert programmes from memory. The city took notice, and so did Mary Emma Wilson, the wife of a shipping magnate, who became Ethel’s patron and funded her studies at the Frankfurt Conservatoire and then in Vienna with Theodor Leschetizky – the most sought-after piano teacher of the era.

When the time came to launch an international career, a well-connected socialite advised young Ethel that “Ethel Liggins from Hull” wasn’t going to cut it in concert halls still dazzled by the mystique of Russian and Polish virtuosos. So Ethel Liggins became Ethel Leginska – a name that suggested Slavic glamour. It was a small act of reinvention in service of a much larger ambition, and it worked.

Leginska debuted in London at the age of 16, toured Australia at 19, and by her 20s she was a fixture on European concert stages. In 1913, she arrived in New York for her official American debut, and the city went a little wild.

Ethel Leginska

There’s a tendency to imagine early 20th-century classical audiences as stiff and reserved, but Leginska’s American career played out more like a pop phenomenon than a polite recital series. Her concerts were sold out. She once performed an entire recital at Carnegie Hall without an interval, a novelty that added to her reputation for doing things differently.

Her programmes – which included the Germanic canon, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff – were delivered with a physical freedom and emotional intensity that seemed to defeat the usual critical vocabulary. One reviewer resorted to calling her “a musical Joan of Arc, a genius moved by unseen powers.”

Leginska also looked unlike anyone else on stage. While other women performers of the era wore the obligatory bare-shouldered evening gown, Leginska showed up in what amounted to a tuxedo: a black velvet jacket, slim skirt, and white shirt. Her hair was bobbed before bobbed hair was fashionable.

Her young fans copied her look so thoroughly that critics described seeing “numerous little Leginskas” in the audience. She later explained that her signature look was “always the same and always comfortable, so that I can forget my appearance and concentrate on my art.”

Ethel Leginska

Rameau–Leschetizky: Gavotte and Variations – Ethel Leginska  

But beneath the persona of the glamorous iconoclast was a woman under considerable professional and psychological pressure. The breakdowns, when they came, were dramatic and very public. In January 1925, she set out in a taxi for an appearance before a crowd of 2,000 at Carnegie Hall and simply vanished. A substitute was found at the last minute. The police searched for her for four days. She was eventually found in Boston, having wandered the city in a daze with, as she later described it, “music singing” in her head, stopping at a friend’s apartment to write the melody down.

The following year, she abandoned a performance before 4,000 people in Indiana, having complained the previous day about the concert hall, which she had called “an old barn”, and the absence of a proper orchestra. Doctors diagnosed a severe nervous breakdown and ordered her to rest for at least a year.

The press was not kind. In the 1920s, nervous breakdowns were widely considered the victim’s fault; the circumstances of a person’s life were largely discounted.

For a woman operating without the institutional support or management infrastructure available to her male counterparts, breakdowns were perhaps inevitable. The remarkable thing is that she kept going   .

Her marriage to the American composer Emerson Whithorne, whom she had met while studying in Vienna, produced a son, Cedric, and then a custody battle that she, predictably, lost.

This was an era when a woman who chose a career over domestic life was seen as morally suspect.

Leginska responded by declaring that self-sacrifice for the family’s sake was “overrated” and that “it is impossible for a woman with a career to be unselfish.”

In the early 20th century, that was practically revolutionary.

What came next was even more radical. By her late 30s, Leginska had pivoted. She studied conducting in London and Munich and traded on her fame as a pianist, offering to perform piano concertos in exchange for the opportunity to conduct. It was a savvy workaround for a field that had no real mechanism for letting women in through the front door.

It worked. She guest-conducted in Munich, Paris, London and Berlin, including a landmark performance with the Berlin Philharmonic in November 1924, where she appeared as pianist, conductor and composer.

Picture a slight woman wearing a black tuxedo jacket striding to the podium. The audience murmurs. Women do not conduct orchestras. They play in parlours or might perform as soloists if they’re very talented, but they certainly don’t stand in front of the New York Symphony Orchestra and raise a baton.

Ethel Leginska conducting

In 1925, Leginska did exactly that, making her American conducting debut at Carnegie Hall.

The Christian Science Monitor in Boston wrote that she “knew what she was about and had definite notions of what she wanted, as well as the means to impress her desires on the players.” At the Hollywood Bowl that summer, 30,000 people were in the audience, and the applause grew into what one critic described as “a veritable ovation culminating with cheers and bravos.”

The New York Herald Tribune, meanwhile, offered the backhanded compliment that nothing “serious” had occurred to mar the performance. Detractors in the press argued, without apparent irony, that women simply did not possess the intellectual rigour to handle the complexities of conducting.

None of which stopped her – quite the opposite. She founded the Boston Women’s Symphony Orchestra, took them on two major tours, established the National Women’s Symphony Orchestra in New York in 1932, and directed the Chicago Women’s Symphony Orchestra.

These weren’t consolation prizes for a woman locked out of the mainstream – they were deliberate acts of institution-building, creating spaces for female musicians at a time when women were still largely excluded from the orchestras that mattered.

In 1935, she conducted her own opera, Gale, at the Chicago Civic Opera House – the first time a woman had ever conducted her own opera in that city’s history. Many years later, at the age of 71, she conducted, in Los Angeles, another opera she had written decades earlier, The Rose and the Ring.

Ethel Leginska died in Los Angeles in 1970, aged 83, teaching piano nearly until the end.

And then she was more or less forgotten.

The orchestras she founded didn’t survive her; the operas she composed were never taken up by the mainstream repertoire; and the institutions she challenged had little interest in preserving her legacy.

She simply slipped away.

A 2002 reissue of her mid-1920s Columbia recordings introduced her playing to a new generation, to considerable acclaim. One critic described the recordings as revealing “a superior musical mind coupled to an unerring technique.”

The Naxos label included her in an anthology of historic women pianists, but her compositions remain largely unperformed. A biography published in 2002 by Marguerite and Terry Broadbent remains the only substantial account of her life, and is itself little known.  

The baton she carried, however, has been picked up by others. Women conductors like Marin Alsop – the first woman to serve as music director of a major American orchestra – and, in the UK, Alice Farnham, who runs a dedicated women’s conducting programme at the Royal Philharmonic Society, are doing now what Leginska was doing a century ago: fighting for space, building institutions and making room for others.

Ethel Leginska didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t wait for orchestras to decide they were ready to let a woman stand at the podium; she bargained her way in, and when that wasn’t enough, she built her own. She had no interest in softening her opinions about what women in the arts deserved, nor in performing the gracious, self-effacing persona the world expected of successful women. She wore a tuxedo, said what she thought, broke down occasionally under the weight of it all, picked herself up and kept going.

The structural barriers she was fighting – the assumption that serious composition and conducting were male domains, and the expectation that a woman should choose between her art and her family – are not entirely over. Women conductors are still rare enough that their appointments make news; women composers are still chronically underrepresented in concert programmes; and even women pianists are still in the minority in international competitions and major concert halls.

The conversation about how institutions support (or fail) creative women is still very much alive. Ethel Leginska was having that conversation in 1916.

It’s well past time we remembered her name.

Nico de Napoli is a classical pianist whose writing has appeared in several international publications, including Pizzicato and Classic Voice. He is also an integrative coach specialising in performance anxiety and stress management, drawing on his experience as a yoga therapist.