Women composers of Catholic music

Since the Middle Ages, women including Hildegard of Bingen and Vittoria Aleotti have verifiably been composing music for the church.

American, Australian and English Catholic hymn collections dating from the first half of the 20th century included hymns and service music by women religious living in convents. Because of their vows of humility, authorship of their compositions was identified only by the composer's first name, initials, or the city where her convent was located.

While much of the Catholic liturgical music published today is still composed by men, the number of liturgical compositions by women is growing. Some of the women who compose music for the Church are Carol Browning,Jeanne Cotter,Dolores Dufner,Bernadette Farrell,Dolores Hruby,Donna Peña,Anne Quigley,M.D. Ridge,Suzanne Toolan,Lori True, andJanèt Sullivan Whitaker.

One of the earliest hymns published by a woman composer in the United States was "I Am the Bread of Life" by Catholic nun Suzanne Toolan, © 1966. Today, this song is still widely sung, not only by Catholic congregations, but by those of many other Christian denominations as well.

Bibliography

*Victoria Sweet, "Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine." New York: Routledge Press, 2006.ISBN 0-415-97634-0
* Joseph L. Baird (trans.), Radd K. Ehrman. "The letters of Hildegard of Bingen". New York : Oxford University Press, 3 vols.,1994-2004. ISBN 0-19-508937-5
* Joseph L. Baird, "The Personal Correspondence of Hildegard of Bingen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-530823-9
* Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (1990). "Scivias", "The Classics of Western Spirituality". New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8091-3130-7
* Audrey Ekdahl Davidson, ed. (1992). "The "Ordo virtutum" of Hildegard of Bingen : critical studies". Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1992. ISBN 1-879288-17-6
*Victoria Sweet, "Hildegard of Bingen and the Greening of Medieval Medicine." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1999, 73:381-403.
* Sabina Flanagan. "Hildegard of Bingen, a Visionary Life". Routledge, London, 1989. ISBN 0-7607-1361-8
* Matthew Fox. "Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen". Santa Fe, N.M. : Bear & Co., 1985. ISBN 1-879181-97-5
* Bruce W. Hozeski, trans. "Hildegard of Bingen : the Book of the rewards of life (Liber vitae meritorum)". New York : Garland Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-19-511371-3
* Barbara Newman. "Sister of wisdom : St. Hildegard's theology of the feminine". Berkeley : University of California Press, 1987. ISBN 0-520-06615-4
* Barbara Newman, trans. "Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the "Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum". Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1988.
* Barbara Newman. "God and the Goddesses". Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1911-2
* Ingeborg Ulrich. "Hildegard von Bingen : Mystikerin, Heilerin, Gefahrtin der Engel". Munich: Kosel, 1990. ISBN 3-466-34254-6
* Andrew Weeks. "German mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein : a literary and intellectual history". Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7914-1419-1
* Maud Burnett McInerney, ed. "Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays". New York: Garland Pub., 1998. ISBN 0-8153-2588-6
* Whitney Chadwick, "Women, Art, and Society," Thames and Hudson, London, 1990. ISBN 0-500-20354-7
* Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, "Women Artists: 1550-1950", Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976. ISBN 0-394-73326-6
* Anna Silvas (trans). "Jutta and Hildegard: the Biographical Sources" (Brepols Medieval Women Series). Penn State University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-271-01954-9
*June Boyce-Tillman. "The Creative Spirit: Harmonious Living with Hildegard of Bingen", Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8192-1882-0
* Suzanne G. Cusick. "Raffaella Aleotti", "Grove Music Online", ed. L. Macy (accessed February 15 2006), [http://www.grovemusic.com/ grovemusic.com] (subscription access).