4 research outputs found
Becoming Camilla Urso: A Female Celebrity Violinist and the Transformation of American Musical Culture
Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was the first nationally famous female violinist in the United States. Between 1852-1902, Urso gave over a thousand concerts in the United States, becoming a musical celebrity on par with the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. Through her public visibility, Urso transformed nineteenth-century American violin playing from a male-dominated field into an acceptable and even fashionable field for women. Despite her nineteenth-century fame, today Urso is mostly forgotten. Over the course of six chronological chapters, this thesis presents a contextual biography of Urso’s American concert career. Utilizing archival sources, digitized newspapers, and digital mapping methodologies, I argue Urso’s life and celebrity persona shifts expected geographical, cultural, and gendered narratives of nineteenth-century American musical culture
Making the Violin Fashionable: Gender and Virtuosity in the Life of Camilla Urso
In the late nineteenth century, the violinist Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was widely recognized as the preeminent female violinist in the United States. As a nationally famous celebrity, Urso became a pedagogue and role model to subsequent generations of female violinists. Both the wide-ranging geographic spread of Urso’s career and her direct advocacy for women violinists played a pivotal role in changing cultural ideals of violin performance from a militant and masculine bravura tradition into a fashionable pursuit for young women. A classmate of HenrykWieniawski (1835-1880) and a concert rival of the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull (1810-1880), Urso’s career rested on the shoulders of the nineteenth century bravura tradition. In her own playing, Urso merged virtuosic works with a feminine sensitivity creating a celebrity persona of the “The Queen of the Violin,” while also redefining gender norms of violin performance for women. First, this paper will examine Urso’s celebrity through two contrasting concerts, one in 1852 and the other in 1885, that illustrate the development of her repertoire and shed light on the world on the nineteenth century concert artist. Secondly, this paper will explore Urso’s role as a pedagogue through her professorship at the National Conservatory of Music, her connection to the New York Women’s String Orchestra, and her own published writings. Through her performance and teaching, Urso profoundly changed the possibilities for women violinists at the turn of the twentieth century
The Supreme and Fiery Force of a Poor Little Form of a Woman: The Development of the Prophetic Voice of Hildegard of Bingen
The first women granted Papal permission to teach and preach on theological matters, Hildegard of Bingen (AD 1098-1179) was a revered spiritual teacher who accumulated a sphere of influence far beyond most medieval women. However, Hildegard’s power derived from a paradox: the only way in which Hildegard was able to gain power was by deliberately diminishing herself as a paupercula femina forma (a poor little form of a woman). This paper explores the paradoxical cultivation of Hildegard\u27s self-image, of a weak woman unwillingly receiving the word of God through debilitating visions, as a means to authenticate Hildegard\u27s work and gain influence within the medieval world
The Queen of the Violin
The commercialized nineteenth century lyceum circuit provided the vehicle for Camilla Urso (1840-1902) to become America's first celebrity female violinist. Vizualizing six seasons between 1873-83 where Urso toured under lyceum bureau management in digital maps of my own creation, I argue industrialized transportation networks combined with the commercialized advertising and publicity of the lyceum circuit created a popular concert model that expanded Urso's audience and raised her concert fees. Urso's time on the lyceum circuit laid the foundation for her transnational career. Urso was never solely a lyceum musician, though exploring the role of lyceums and their bureaus in her career plays a key role in determining how she rose to fame and became America's most celebrated female violinist. Futhermore, Urso's lyceum career argues for classical music as a rural and commercial phenomenon of American popular culture in the nineteenth century.