The Antebellum "Piano Girl" in the American South

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, the education of young gentlewomen almost always included music lessons, with piano lessons being the most frequently recommended. The social context for these young women pianists, "piano girls," has been described in several modern works, particularly since Arthur Loesser's seminal work Men, Women, and Pianos: A Social History. 1 In the 1980s, Judith Tick made the term "piano girl" a familiar one in musicological studies, and since that time the idea of the piano girl and her role in society has been explored by others. 2 Most of these studies describe the social phenomenon of the piano girl, but how she played, whether the repertory differed based on occasion, and the extent of application has yet to be fully considered. In order to fully appreciate the context, and by extension the performance practice, of the piano girl, she must be examined within her own culturally specific milieu. In her perceptive work on French women pianists of this period, Katharine Ellis has demonstrated the importance of isolating the phenomenon within a defined time and place, for values do not necessarily 1

Semanario Musical. Autógrafos. Fotografías: Marcas Materiales De La Construcción Íntima De Isidora Zegers Como Artista (Chile, Siglo Xix)

“…La comprensión de los álbumes como autobiografías ha sido planteada, sobre todo, en la discusión acerca de los scrapbooks o libros de recortes(Tucker et al, 2006, pp. 2-3) y otros formatos de álbumes concebidos especialmente para el registro de información biográfica(Matthews, 2012), aunque también ha sido desarrollada en términos de expresión de subjetividad y agencia en relación con los álbumes musicales(Bailey, 2008(Bailey, , 2021Vera, 2022).…”