| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 296 words from this article are provided below; about 580 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 104.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Ralph P. Locke and Cyrilla Barr, editors. Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists since 1860. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1997. Pp. xi, 357. $45.00.

This book, edited by Ralph P. Locke and Cyrilla Barr, provides a wealth of fascinating information on the roles that women have played as musical patrons since 1860, mostly in the decades just before and after 1900. The tendency among scholars has been to deprecate women patrons, treating them as untutored society ladies who have done art more harm than good. Here we find the strong articulation of quite a different opinion: that American music would have had a very hard time had these women not done what they did. What is particularly significant is the perspective the book gives that they were responsible not only for establishing conservatories and concert societies, but also for nurturing the lives of American composers in extremely important ways. 1

The work is imaginative in its design. It offers not only the standard papers on major patrons but also includes short vignettes in most of the ten chapters that are either contemporary sources or interviews. It is intriguing to read Aaron Copland's guest list for a postconcert reception given by his friend Blanche Walton, or to hear reminiscences of musical parties at the home of Sophie Drinker, author of the remarkable Music and Women (1948). The most timely of the vignettes is an interview with Betty Freeman, a Los Angeles native who has served as colleague to many of America's avant-garde composers in the last thirty years, from John Cage to Philip Glass to John Adams. She has recently become the most important patron of the modernistic new Salzburg Festival. . . .

There are about 580 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.