Abstract

In the West many women composers were active in the creation of music, in social and political life, but completely absent in historiography, starting from the Universal Encyclopedism of the eighteenth century. This article recalls the main examples in the European history, from Middle Ages to eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of women practising music and claiming their right and role as musicians against a culture that from the Greeks and through the Cristianity excluded women from, or assigned them to a marginal role in, music practices. In twentieth century, cultural changes and advances in terms of equal opportunities between men and women had limited results in music activities, as some European researches showed, so that associations sprung up – Italian examples are given – to promote and bring out the women professional roles and results as composers, artists, teachers in the music fields.