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Women’s Movements
in Post-“Arab Spring”
North Africa

Edited by Fatima Sadiqi

Comparative Feminist Studies Series
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Series Editor

Published by Palgrave Macmillan:

Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu
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by Fatima Sadiqi
 Women’s Movements in
Post-“Arab Spring” North Africa

Edited by Fatima Sadiqi

Editor
Fatima Sadiqi
Fez, Morocco

Comparative Feminist Studies Series

ISBN 978-1-137-52047-0 ISBN 978-1-137-50675-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50675-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016939122

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any
other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,
computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
To the loving memory of my brother Hassan
 Contents

Illustrations ix
Series Editor’s Preface xi

One “Introduction: The Centrality of Women’s Movements

in the Post-revolution Dynamics in North Africa”
by Fatima Sadiqi 1

Part One Contextualizing Women’s Movements in

North Africa: Conceptual Issues 13
Two “The Center: A Post-revolution Space for Women’s
Movements in North Africa: Morocco as an Example”
by Fatima Sadiqi 15
Three “Women and the Arab Spring: A Transnational,
Feminist Revolution” by miriam cooke 31
Four “Creative Disobedience: Feminism, Islam, and Revolution
in Egypt” by Margot Badran 45
Five “Gendering the Egyptian Revolution” by Dina Wahba 61
Six “The Lipstick on the Edge of the Well: Mauritanian
Women and Political Power (1960–2014)”
by Céline Lesourd 77

Part Two Specific Country Experiences 95

Seven “About North African Women’s Rights After
the Arab Spring” by Moha Ennaji 97
Eight “Women’s Rights and Equality: Egyptian Constitutional
Law” by Ellen McLarney 109
Nine “The Struggle of Egyptian Women for Equal Rights
Continues: Two Steps Forward, One Step Backward”
by Moushira Khattab 127
Ten “Women, Art, and Revolution in the Streets of Egypt”
by Névine El Nossery 143
viii Contents

Eleven “Notes on Sudanese Women’s Activism, Movements,

and Leadership” by Sondra Hale 159
Twelve “Revolutionary Nuns or Totalitarian Pawns: Evaluating
Libyan State Feminism After Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi”
by Amanda Rogers 177
Thirteen “Tunisian Women’s Literature and the Critique of
Authority: Sources, Contexts, and the Tunisian
“Arab Spring”” by Lilia Labidi 195
Fourteen “Engendering Tunisia’s Democratic Transition:
What Challenges Face Women?” by Nabila Hamza 211
Fifteen “Women and Leadership in the Post-Arab Spring:
The Case of Tunisia” by Khadija Arfaoui 223
Sixteen “The Algerian Woman Issue: Struggles, Islamic Violence,
and Co-optation” by Rachid Tlemçani 235
Seventeen “Moroccan Women in Limbo: On Liminal Citizenship
and the Quest for Equality” by Soumia Boutkhil 251
Eighteen “Moroccan Women’s Cultural Rights: A Psycho-social
Perspective on Cultural Paradoxes” by Rachida Kerkech 267
Nineteen “Women’s Economic Empowerment in Morocco:
The Case of Social Entrepreneurship” by Manal Elattir,
Yamina El Kirat El Allame and Youness Tihm 283
Twenty “Reflections on the 20-February Movement:
Hope Renewed, Hope Frustrated for Women”
by Abdellatif Zaki 299

Notes on Contributors 313

Index 317
 Illustrations

Figures
13.1 “Freedom of Speech” (Lilia Halloul) 208
13.2 “The Blackest Book in Tunisian History” (Lilia Halloul) 208

Table
15.1 Number of seats (out of 217) won by women in 2014
Tunisian legislative elections 232
 Series Editor’s Preface

For almost two decades, the Comparative Feminist Studies (CFS) series has
addressed fundamental analytic and political questions involved in the cross-
cultural production of knowledge about women and feminism. The series
seeks to engage the politics of scholarship and knowledge in relation to femi-
nist organizing and social justice movements, and is designed to foreground
writing, organizing, and reflection on feminist trajectories across the historical
and cultural borders of cultures and nation-states. Drawing on feminist think-
ing in a number of fields, the CFS series targets innovative, comparative femi-
nist scholarship, pedagogical and curricular strategies, and community
organizing and political education. It explores a comparative feminist praxis
that addresses some of the most urgent questions facing progressive critical
thinkers and activists today.
Over the past many decades, feminists and social justice activists across the
globe have been variously successful at addressing fundamental issues of
domination, exploitation, and liberation. In our search for gender justice in
the early twenty-first century, however, we inherit a number of the challenges
our mothers and grandmothers faced. But we are also confronted by new
challenges as we attempt to make sense of a world indelibly marked by the
failure of settler-colonial and postcolonial (and advanced) capitalist and com-
munist nation-states to provide for the social, economic, spiritual, and psychic
needs of the majority of the world’s population. Globalization has come to
represent the interests of corporations and the free market rather than self-
determination and freedom from political, cultural, and economic domination
for all the world’s peoples. The project of US empire building, the rise of
Islamophobia in the USA and Europe, and the global consolidation of
“national security” regimes, alongside the dominance of corporate capitalism
and neoliberalism, kills, disenfranchises, and impoverishes women every-
where. Militarization, environmental degradation, heterosexist state practices,
religious fundamentalisms, sustained migrations of peoples across the borders
of nations and geopolitical regions, environmental crises, criminalization and
the rise of carceral regimes of rule, and the exploitation of gendered bodies
and labor by governments and corporate capital all pose profound challenges
for feminists at this time. Neoliberal economic policies and discourses of
development and progress mark yet another form of colonial/imperial gover-
nance, masking the exercise of power over people’s lives through claims of
empowerment. Recovering and remembering insurgent histories and seeking
new understandings of political subjectivities and citizenship have never been
so important, at a time marked by social amnesia, global consumer culture,
and the worldwide mobilization of fascist notions of “national security.”
xii Series Editor’s Preface

These are some of the very challenges the CFS series is designed to address.
The series takes as its fundamental premises the need for feminist engagement
with global as well as local ideological, historical, economic, and political
processes, along with the urgency of transnational feminist dialogue in build-
ing an ethical culture capable of withstanding and transforming the com-
modified and exploitative practices of global governance structures, culture,
and economics. Individual volumes in the CFS series develop and sustain gen-
dered epistemologies anchored in the history and experiences of the Global
South, providing systemic and challenging interventions into the (still) largely
Euro-Western feminist studies knowledge base. The series highlights work
that can and needs to be done to envision and enact cross-cultural, multiracial
feminist solidarity.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty
Ithaca, NY
 Chapter One

Introduction: The Centrality of Women’s

Movements in the Post-revolution
Dynamics in North Africa
Fatima Sadiqi

Abstract The introduction presents the central argument of the book, namely
that the interaction between different types of colonial heritages and various
types of post-colonial rule in North Africa1 created new actors and agents, as

1
Defining North Africa has never been an easy task (see Sadiqi et al. 2009). Although
generally seen as the coastal region from Egypt to Mauritania, North Africa has often
been associated with similar cultures farther south on the continent. In mainstream
Western literature, North Africa is often defined in relation to its Mediterranean and
Middle Eastern civilizations, hence the use of “Northern Africa.” In this volume, North
Africa is used to refer to the following countries Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria,
Morocco, and Mauritania. The last four countries are also referred to as the Maghrib.
In other words, North Africa refers to all the states on the northern rim; or not quite
as Sudan is included. Also, Chapter Two refers to countries of the Arab Spring which
are in West Asia–Syria.
In terms of size, the largest country is Algeria, followed by Libya, then Mauritania,
then Egypt, Morocco, and finally Tunisia. As for demographics, Egypt is the most
populous country (around 90 million) and Mauritania the least populous one (around
3 million). In between, Sudan counts 45 million (around 11 million in South Sudan),
Morocco (around 33 million), Algeria (around 30 million), Tunisia (around 10 million),
and Libya (around 7 million). The distribution of these populations is not even. In
Egypt most people live in three regions that are considered among the most popu-
lated in the world (over 3820 people per square mile): Cairo, Alexandria, and the
banks of the Nile. In Sudan, most people live in the north. In Libya, 90 % of the
population live along the coasts. In Morocco some 58 % of the population live in
cities and are concentrated in the northwestern part of the country, west of the Atlas
Mountains. In Algeria, 45 % of the population is urban, with almost 91 % concen-
trated along the Mediterranean coast. In Tunisia, about three-quarters of the popula-
tion live in the coastal and urban regions. In Mauritania, most people live in and
around the capital, Nouakchott. In terms of economy, the wealthiest countries are
Algeria and Libya, with important supplies of petroleum and, in the case of Algeria,
natural gas. The rest of the countries rely heavily on a varying mixture of agriculture,

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

F. Sadiqi (ed.), Women’s Movements in Post-“Arab Spring” North Africa,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50675-7_1
2 Women’s Movements in Post-“Arab Spring” North Africa

well as new ambiguities and dilemmas, that culminated in the so-called Arab
Spring and the subsequent developments in which women’s movements have
occupied center stage. To address this argument, women’s movements are first
contextualized within the overarching historical and political sources of
power in North Africa. A presentation of the chapters of the volume follows,
with a focus on how they address the book’s argument either conceptually or
through country-specific studies. Taken together, the chapters of this book
open new venues of research on North African studies and offer possibilities
for comparison at the local, regional, and global levels.

Unexpected and transformative uprisings broke out in North Africa and

quickly spread to the Middle East and the rest of the world in 2010–2011.
Spontaneous, leaderless, youth-driven, and backed by social media, these
uprisings called for karamah (dignity) and democracy. Various analyses of this
unique phenomenon have attempted to capture its meanings (see, for example,
Dabashi 2012; Gelvin 2012; Ramadan 2012; and Pollack 2011). However,
significant as they are, these analyses do not highlight, let alone center, the role
of women before, during, and after the uprisings and focus only on women’s
“remarkable” and “spectacular” presence during the uprisings. Hence, for
example, Dabashi’s characterization of the uprisings as “delayed defiance” (a
sort of rebellion against both domestic tyranny and globalized disempower-
ment) and the “end of postcolonialism,” seem to be sexless and ungendered,
thus presumably male. Moreover, as the events unfolded in the four or so
years that followed the uprisings and allowed the Islamists to co-opt the revo-
lutions, women’s recognition in the spaces of authority shrank and their voices
were muted in the ensuing geopolitics. It is as if women made the stories of the
revolution but did not own them. Yet women in the region continue to be
vocal, and the debates on their rights continue to fill the public spheres. This
volume seeks to understand, contextualize, and explain these facts through an
overall conceptual framework and a number of country-specific analyses.
The main argument of this volume centers the uprisings as a “revolution”2
instigated by the new actors, but also the new ambiguities, that post-colonial
rule in North Africa created, and highlights women’s movements in the mak-
ing and aftermath of this revolution. This argument is addressed both

migration remittances, and mining. Egypt, Algeria, and Libya experienced highly
centralized and planned economies under socialist regimes but started to open to
market economy in the 1990s and 2000s. Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan, and Mauritania
have liberal economies generally governed by the law of supply and demand.
2
These laws were heavily criticized before and after the so-called Arab Spring. The
Islamists of Morsi wanted to make the law more conservative and the military of Sissi
call for “modernizing it.” What is important from the perspective of this book is that
succeeding regimes fragilized the Egyptian family law through frequent and sometimes
conflicting changes.
 Women’s Movements in the Post-revolution Dynamics in North Africa 3

conceptually and through facts; hence the adoption of an approach combin-

ing academic, activist, and political perspectives. Conceptually, a complex,
overarching theoretical framework is adopted, where five interrelated notions
interlock: a post-revolution “Center” as an ideological middle-ground space
where secular and Islamist paradigms confront each other over women’s
rights; women’s feminist persistence in the face of cultural resistance and
backlash; the ongoing creative disobedience that characterizes women’s post-
revolution expressions; gender as a “lived” category; and the twin paradoxical
realities in women’s lives, political participation and denial of authority, and
how this ambivalence of inclusion is “manipulated.” The underlying thread
tying these notions together is the rise of women as new actors in the region
and the new (state) ambiguities that accompany this rise. This conceptual
framework is addressed by various country-specific cases.
Reading through the chapters in this volume allows an understanding of
how women’s movements operate in post-revolution North Africa, a hetero-
geneous region at the levels of history, religion, culture, society, regime style,
and language in spite of a shared “standardized” Arabic and Islamic culture.
Until recently, studies of North African women’s movements have largely been
limited to single aspects of women’s achievements; in providing a broader
perspective, this volume allows more insight into the shaping role of the larger
superstructures of power as well as the rich variety of women’s experiences
and their potential contributions to African, Middle Eastern, and global
feminist thought. By offering a far-reaching historical scope that precedes the
revolution and extends into the aftermath, the chapters cut across different
temporal, historical (pre-/post-revolution), national, and linguistic frame-
works, thereby expanding the study of women’s movements in North Africa
beyond singular national contexts and highlighting the role of Islam while still
paying close attention to local characteristics.
From the perspective of this volume, the most important aspect of religion
is its impact on the design of family laws, the first documents that the coun-
tries of North Africa drafted after independence. North African family laws
differ in the degree of deference to shari’a law (Islamic law) affecting women
and the family. The oldest personal status law (or family law) in North Africa
is the Egyptian personal status law of 1920. This law was revised in 1979 and
in 2000.3 The second family law was produced in Tunisia and realized the

3
The 1979 law is also called “Jihan’s Law,” a pejorative nickname for it and the per-
sonal status law of 2000 law is called “Suzanne’s Law,” again a slandering nick name
(Margot Badran, Personal communication). As for Egypt, the secular states under
Sadat and Mubarak produced the Jihane Sadat and Suzanne Mubarak Laws, respec-
tively, which were heavily criticized in the Arab Spring. The Islamists of Morsi wanted
to make the law more conservative and the military of Sissi are calling for “modern-
izing it.” What is important from the perspective of this book is that succeeding
regimes fragilized the Egyptian family law through frequent and sometimes conflict-
ing changes.
4 Women’s Movements in Post-“Arab Spring” North Africa

ambition of a cohesive urban and modern elite to have one uniform law that
applied to all Tunisian citizens.4 This law not only prohibited, but also crimi-
nalized, polygyny. It also inscribed gender equality in the text and guaranteed
women’s rights before, during, and after marriage. Further, the law was based
on progressive innovation and reforms in Tunisia. Because of Tunisia’s choice
of modernization since the nineteenth century and the colonizers’ resistance
to this modernization, the family law was conceived as an instrument of this
modernization.
The Moroccan Personal Status Code, or Mudawwana, was promulgated
between November 1957 and January 1958, that is, 1 year and 2 months after
the independence of the country in November 1956. The promulgation of the
Mudawwana aimed at two things: to supersede the Berber customary laws
and reassure the tribes and conservative nationalists that the traditional patri-
archal order would be maintained, and to signal the country’s independence
from France by reaffirming many pre-colonial Maliki principles. This text was
modified twice through reforms, in 1993 and 2003, but it is still short of the
Tunisian code.
In Algeria, the ruling elite waited 22 years before promulgating its first
family law in 1984. This temporization was due to the conflict between femi-
nists, who fought for progressive laws, and the ruling elites, who were deter-
mined to preserve the patriarchal family as set in the Maliki jurisprudence.
The Sudanese Personal Status laws were based on shari’a and were not
really influenced by Western models. The Sunni branch that informed the fam-
ily laws in this country was influenced by the Hanafi School, deemed more
conservative than the other schools.
In Libya, family laws were associated with al-Gaddafi and his Green Book.
The regime enhanced women’s rights through progressive laws and restric-
tions on men seeking divorce or seeking a second spouse in a clear use of state
feminism to enforce the leader’s image inside and outside the country.
In Mauritania, the 2001 Personal Status Code is based on a “respect” of
tradition, such as a woman’s right to divorce without her husband’s permis-
sion. The laws improve certain aspects of gender relations, such as the require-
ment of a woman’s consent before marriage, and maintain certain forms of
gender inequalities, such as the fact that the “tutor” (most commonly a male
relative) can marry off a woman under 18 if he determines it is in her interest.
The word “interest” is not defined, and the silence of a minor girl is under-
stood as consent.
In sum, family laws in North Africa have historically functioned as a means
of bringing religious laws under control by centering them on the family. The
nature of this procedure obviously depended on the nature of the ruling
regime styles, and the interaction between the latter and the instrumentaliza-
tion of religion served authoritarianism and patriarchy and created resistance

4
According to the law first applied only to Muslims, but in 1957 it was extended to
cover all Tunisians.
18 Women’s Movements in Post-“Arab Spring” North Africa

’asr (era) and means “of this era.” This concept is general and spans all walks
of life from the family through the street to the government. Modernists are
generally urban and educated, and, without denying religion, they do not
highlight it. The concept of ’ilmani (secularist) mainly spans the public
sphere, especially its political and legal aspects.5 Like modernists, secularists
tend to be educated and urban, but they view religion as more of a private
than a public matter. More specifically, as the Moroccan monarch is believed
to embody the highest political and religious authority, secularists espouse
modernity but stress the separation of religion and politics in the public
spheres. This is the reason why, for example, Moroccan secular feminists have
always sought to improve, not replace, shari’a (Islamic law). For secular forces,
Islamic law is an ancient form of law that works only in religious fields, and
they believe that Muslim countries require modern secular laws. Indeed, for
secularists, religion should operate only in social life and should not interfere
with secular politics; otherwise society will go backward, particularly because
the past is internalized as a “glorified era” in Moroccan culture. Furthermore,
with compulsory primary education, progress and modernization have been
achieved, and this in itself constitutes a great impetus for secular forces. Both
modernists and secularists capitalize on women’s education and empower-
ment to cross the religious barriers set by the conservatives/Islamists.
Modernists/secularists were very instrumental during the state-building
phase after Morocco’s independence from France in 1956 and during the
decolonization era and have continued to be instrumental in current times.
Indeed, at its inception, the state (monarchy and the government) presented
itself as “the modernizer” of Morocco. At the heart of this “modernization”
project dwelt a combination of urbanization, industrialization, bilingual edu-
cation (Arabic and French), business, and trade exchanges with Europe, espe-
cially France. At the social level, the French style in matters of dress and way
of life was widely encouraged. Beyond the state, the modernist intellectual
trend that emerged from within the nationalist movement back in the 1940s,
led by Hassan Ouazzani, continued to gather momentum, especially among
the urban elite. During the decolonization decades that followed indepen-
dence, the concept of “modernist” lost some of its semantic charge, but it is
still a valid progress-linked category. As for the concept of “secularist,” it is
gathering momentum and absorbing the modernist concept because secular
forces value modernity and progress.6

5
The words “secular” and “secularism” derive from the Latin word “saecularis” (mean-
ing “of a generation, belonging to an age”) and have a Catholic origin: the Christian
idea that God exists outside time led medieval Western cultures to use “secular” to
refer only to temporal affairs that did not involve specifically religious matters.
However, like most concepts when linked to “lived experiences,” the term “secularism”
has adapted to the overall socio-cultural and political contexts.
6
The terms modernists and secularists are used interchangeably in the rest of the
chapter.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 The Clavichord

In the clavichord, each key drove a metal tangent against a string

and was held there as was the bridge of the monochord. The tone was
dependent on the place where the tangent struck. The string vibrated
on one side of the tangent, but the other part of the string was
deadened by a strip of cloth. The strings were about the same length
and often two or three keys operated the same string so that it was
possible to make a very small instrument. In the 16th century, it
usually had twenty keys; in the 18th century, four octaves or fifty
keys, but of course there were less than fifty strings! Later, every key
had its own string and these were called bundfrei or unfretted
clavichords, while the others were called gebunden or fretted. The
clavichord was usually small enough to carry under the arm,
although sometimes it was made with legs. Should you be in New
York you must see the collection of beautifully ornamented
clavichords and harpsichords at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
the Crosby Brown Collection.
Bach liked the clavichord better than the harpsichord and the early
pianos that blossomed in his day. Because of the pressure of the
tangent, it was possible to get a delicately graded tone when the key
was pressed, a wavy, rocking, pulsating effect, which made each
player’s performance very individual, but to us, now, it sounds thin
and metallic. The word “clavichord” comes from clavis—a key, and
chord—a string. Clavichords and also virginals were often played in
pairs, no doubt for richer effect and for volume.
Large instruments developed slowly because before the 11th
century, wire-drawing (making) was not known, so all keyed string
instruments were strung with gut.
 Harpsichord

128TH SONNET
SHAKESPEARE AND THE HARPSICHORD

How oft when thou, my music, music play’st

Upon that blessed wood, whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that my ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand:
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness, by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gate,
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

The harpsichord, we like to call the “Jack and Quill” instrument—

for it is played by keys, jacks and quills which pluck its strings,
instead of pressing or hammering. This is like a keyboarded zither,
and is shaped something like our grand piano.
Each key has a string. Pressing the key pushes a jack, from whose
side projects a small quill or spine which twangs the string. When the
key is released, the quill slips back into the first position and a
damper falls upon the string. The strings vary in length according to
the pitch for the harpsichord has no tangent to divide off the string
as had the clavichord and monochord. Thus the harpsichord on
account of its long and short strings is not square like the clavichord
but is shaped more like the harp and the grand piano.
Some one said that the harpsichord tone was “a scratch with a note
at the end of it.” And yet, when we hear Wanda Landowska play the
harpsichord today, it sounds very beautiful indeed. Smaller varieties
are called virginals and spinets. Perhaps the spinet is named for its
inventor Spinetti, or perhaps the word comes from “spinet” meaning
spine, a thorn or point. The virginal comes from the word virgo—
meaning maiden and was the popular instrument for the “ladies” of
the day. There were larger harpsichords, too, with two and three
keyboards and very many varieties, both small and large. The
clavichord and the harpsichord were known from the 15th century
and were associated with the organ until the 17th century, when the
Ruckers family developed harpsichord making into a fine art. The
first mention of the harpsichord, is in the “Rules of the
Minnesingers” (1404).
 The First Pianofortes

Early in the 18th century, music ceased to be just pretty sounds,

and musicians wanted instruments on which they could express
deeper feelings and began to look around for some way to make the
harpsichord meet this need.
It came about in this way. Pantaleone Hebenstreit, a fiddler at the
Saxon court played a dulcimer which he enlarged by adding to it a
second system of strings. He tuned it in equal temperament, as Bach
had the clavichord, and used hammers on it which produced very
beautiful and loud tones. Louis XIV saw this, and liking it, called it
the Pantaleone. But, shortly after this, Gottlieb Schroeter heard it
and said, “only through hammers can the harpsichord become
expressive.”
So in 1721 Schroeter submitted to the King of Saxony his idea of a
harpsichord which could play soft and loud or in Italian piano and
forte (the fortepiano or loud-soft instrument). But as he had none
made he did not get credit for the invention until after much
argument, based on accounts in his diary. As always, when a thing is
needed someone will invent it.
The man who actually made the first pianoforte was an Italian,
Bartolomeo Cristofori (1653–1731) of Padua; and the Frenchman
Marius, and the German, Christoph Gottlieb Schroeter, followed suit.
In 1709, Cristofori exhibited harpsichords (gravicembali) with
hammer action capable of producing piano and forte effects. He
advertised it in the paper as a gravicembali col piano e forte. By
1711, the fame of his invention had spread into Germany. In
February, 1716, Marius in France tried to improve the harpsichord
with hammers which he called the clavecin à mallets, and made two
types.
Schroeter about this time made the two kinds also. The piano had
little standing, however, until Gottfried Silbermann took advantage
of Bach’s criticism of his pianos and made a grand type.
The next experimenters in pianos were, Frederici of Gera (died in
1779), who made the square. Spaeth, who made grands and George
Andreas Stein in Augsburg, who was trained by Silbermann,
invented the Viennese action on which a light touch was possible and
for this reason Mozart used it.
Burkhardt Tschudi, a piano maker in London, had a Scotch
assistant, James Broadwood, who became his partner (1770). Later
the firm became John Broadwood and Sons, which it has remained.
It was the first to use the damper and the soft pedals. For some time
they used Zumpe’s style of square piano but later made their own.
This house used the Cristofori action which made a more solid and
heavier tone than the Viennese action, and was known as the English
action, excellent for large rooms and concerts. These actions suited
the different methods of piano playing.
Stein’s daughter Nanette Streicher, a marvelous player and a
cultivated woman, upon inheriting her father’s piano business moved
to Vienna and for forty years was considered an expert in the piano
world. Thayer, in his life of Beethoven says: “In May, Beethoven, on
the advice of medical men, went to Baden, whither he was followed
by his friend Mrs. Streicher ... who took charge of his lodgings and
his clothes, which appear to have been in a deplorable state.” Thayer
says that Beethoven always preferred the piano of Stein to any
others. Beethoven wrote to Nanette: “Perhaps you do not know,
though I have not always had one of your pianos, that since 1809 I
have invariably preferred yours.”
So, you see a woman could keep house and be a manufacturer as
well, even in the early 19th century!
Then came Sebastien Erard (1752–1831) who made the first
French piano in 1777. Erard invented many new things for the piano
and formed a company in England. This firm was advertised on the
hand bill announcing Liszt’s concert in Paris when he was twelve
years old.
Added to these names is Ignaz Josef Pleyel (1757–1831), who also
made a piano with a very sympathetic tone which Chopin made
famous from 1831. The Pleyel and the Erard are still the leading
pianos of France.
For some years the pianoforte went through many changes. As you
are not learning to make a piano, you will have to take it for granted
that there were many many steps taken from this time on to make
the modern piano. However, the thing that held it back was the all-
wood frame which could not stand the strain of the tightly drawn
strings and it was a long time before the makers gave up the beautiful
wood for the sturdier metal. About the time of Beethoven, playing
the piano became a more complicated thing than it had been, and a
grown up instrument was needed, so musical instrument makers had
to “step lively” to keep pace with the music. At every concert, and
often in the middle of a piece, the player would have to stop to retune
the instrument on which he was playing. Therefore, all energy was
bent to making the frame of the piano rigid, the strings more elastic
and the pins firmer, and the metal frame was used.
All these special things were accomplished in later years. Some of
the inventors were John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, who
patented the upright pianoforte in 1800 in the United States,
William Allen, a Scotchman, who introduced metal braces in 1820
and Alpheus Babcock, who patented the iron frame in a single cast,
in Boston, in 1825. It was an American, Jonas Chickering, of Boston,
who invented the complete iron frame for the concert grand, and at
present, after many years, the instrument which seventy-five years
ago bent under the pull of the strings, can now stand the strain of
thirty tons! Chickering made pianos as early as 1823.
After this there was much experimentation in pianos, culminating
here, in the pianos made by Steinway and Sons the ancestor of which
was the firm of Heinrich Englehard Steinweg, of Brunswick,
Germany, starting as organ makers. In 1848 Heinrich’s sons went to
New York City and changed their name to Steinway, where
Theodore, the eldest, continued the firm as Steinway and Sons.
Of course, the methods of stringing and tuning a piano have taken
years to develop—all of which we cannot go into in this book. Now,
instead of twenty strings, as we saw them in the clavichord, we have
243 strings to produce 88 tones.
So now we have the harpsichord with hammers “grown up” into
the pianoforte, with its myriad parts, no longer made by hand, but
carefully manufactured by machinery and the finest of them are
American.
 Piano Buying Created a Holiday in the 18th Century

“When the pianoforte was completed and ready to be delivered at

the house of the impatient purchaser (in Germany) a festival took
place; the maker, was the hero of the hour, and accompanied the
piano followed by his craftsman and apprentices, if he had any. (In
those days the pianos took months and months to make, for they
were made by hand and the makers received cash in part payment
and the rest was made up in corn, wheat, potatoes, poultry and
firewood!)
“The wagon which conveyed the precious burden was gaily
decorated with wreaths and flowers, the horses magnificently decked
out, a band of music headed the procession, and after the wagon
followed the proud maker, borne on the shoulders of his assistants;
musicians, organists, schoolmasters and dignitaries marching in the
rear. At the place of destination the procession was received with
greetings of welcome and shouts of joy. The pastor of the place said a
prayer and blessed the new instrument and its maker. Then the
mayor or the burgomaster of the place delivered an address,—
dwelling at great length upon the importance of the event to the
whole community, and stating, perhaps, that the coming of such a
new musical instrument would raise their place in the eyes of the
surrounding country. Then followed speeches by the schoolmaster,
doctor, druggist, and other dignitaries, and songs by the Männerchor
(men’s chorus) of the place. Amidst the strains of the band, the
pianoforte was moved to its new home. A banquet and a dance closed
the happy occasion.” (From Reminiscences of Morris Steinert by
Jane Marlin.)
 “The Piano and Pneumatics”

It is very difficult to know just when this important instrument

first was invented. It seems to have started with a mechanical organ
and many were the experimenters among whom was John
McTammany, a soldier in the Civil War who while disabled turned
his mind to mechanics and became one of the great pneumatic (air
power) experts. And so, just as we arrive at the beautiful instrument,
the piano, comes another instrument far more complicated, whose
possibilities are still in its infancy. At present the automatic piano is
operated by bellows and pneumatic tubes (which look together like a
bunch of gray spaghetti) and through which the air is exhausted and
acts in such a way that the piano hammers fall against the piano
strings. Into these instruments are placed perforated music rolls
which travel over a tracker bar full of holes, each one having its
rubber spaghetti tube. When the bellows work and the perforation of
the roll passes over a perforation of the tracker bar, the air is released
and its exhaustion causes the hammer to fall on the strings. This
sounds simple,—but it is not!
There are three kinds of automatic players,—one, the piano
player, which is now practically extinct in this country, a cabinet
which moves up to the piano, and with a series of keys corresponding
to the keys on the piano which, when in action presses down the
piano keys and the tune starts.
Then we have the player piano. In this, whether it be an upright or
a grand piano, the machinery is inside the piano itself (instead of
being in the outside cabinet), so that one can hardly tell at first
glance whether it is an automatic instrument or not. The perforated
roll is put on inside the piano.
All these piano player bellows work either by electricity or by the
feet. So in the latter, one cannot help playing with “sole”!
The reproducing piano is the third type of player. This is magical,
for it reproduces the player’s performance as he plays it himself.
Therefore we can entice Paderewski, Bauer, Rachmaninoff and all
the other great players into our own drawing rooms and hear them
with their superb skill. These are usually operated by electricity, yet
the Æolian Company and probably others, have a reproducing piano
which is propelled by the pedals as were the old ones before the
invention of the electric player. Furthermore, some of the
reproducing pianos have a mechanism with which you yourself can
interpret any piece you desire. This gives the music lover who has
been denied the study of music a chance to enjoy interpreting great
music.
It is an impossibility to overestimate the value of the player piano
to the young student, to increase his auditory repertoire, for the
music of the world is his for the turning of a lever!
 Their Contribution to Art

For a long time, the mechanical player has been looked on as a

step-child, to be made fun of and scorned. Today, the great critics
and best musicians recognize its value which is not as a substitute for
a piano but as an instrument in itself. Sir Henry J. Wood of England
says: “I realize the value ... of the pianola ... for a good many of the
people in our audiences ... are acquiring by its means a closer
acquaintance with the great musical masterpieces.”
He says in another place, “It’s a foolish and a shortsighted policy to
despise any means by which we may add to the sum total of musical
appreciation.”
And Edwin Evans, English critic and writer, says: “The player
piano relieves the musician of the technical difficulties of the
keyboard.... It does not relieve him from the duty of thinking
musicianly, on the contrary, ... it makes it a point of honor with him
to give ... fuller employment to his brain and sensibility.... There are
dozens of scores nowadays which it is an impossibility to read at the
piano and very trying to read on paper. Here the player piano is a
boon and a blessing for it unravels every mystery and solves every
problem.”
Besides this, it can be played so skilfully by some that even
musicians can be fooled as to whether human or mechanical fingers
are playing. Gustave Kobbé said, in his Pianolist, something like this:
“There are only about five professionals who can play the piano
better than an accomplished pianolist.”
To prove its artistic worth further, Percy Grainger, Alfredo Casella
and Igor Stravinsky and other great moderns are writing music
especially for the player piano because they can use the whole eighty-
eight notes with full orchestral effects, without stopping to think of
the meagre ten fingers of man! So we see in the future the possibility
of this becoming one of the creative instruments.
 Other “Canned” Music

Then we have the phonographs and radio. These cannot be

considered instruments in the same way as the player piano and
reproducing piano, but are invaluable means of musical education
and are doing, with the player piano, a marvelous work in
introducing people to the great music of the world. Of course, it
depends upon the way all these music carriers are used, for if you
have poor music on them, it will mean nothing to you, but if you hear
the “wear evers” on them, you will have a touch of heaven in your
life, forever.
 Pianists Come to View

As an outcome of the work of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, the

piano appeared because of the need of a more powerful instrument
than the harpsichord and clavichord. At this time there were two
particular schools of piano playing,—the Viennese, light and delicate
in tone, and the English school, producing a more solid and more
brilliant tone.
The principal pianists of the Viennese school were Johann
Hummel, who, as a boy of seven, was a pupil of Mozart, Franz
Duschek, Mozart and Pleyel. Later Beethoven himself appeared, the
profound pianist in this group, but also an advocate of Clementi’s
methods.
The Clementi School is named from Muzio Clementi (1752–1832),
the “Father of the Pianoforte.” He was a composer of piano pieces,
especially of sonatas which are still of musical value. Who of us has
not studied Clementi’s sonatinas? Besides being a great player, a
teacher and a composer, Clementi published a work called Gradus
ad Parnassum, piano studies, a form which sprang up because of the
need to develop a technic for the new instruments when the piano
was young.
Clementi, at fourteen, went to England, where he lived all his life
and became interested in the making of pianos. He was associated
with the firm of Clementi and Company, later Collard and Collard,
and it is said that he gave the Broadwoods much advice in the
making of their “grand” piano. So we see Clementi as a founder of
piano technic, and an instrument maker! He lived eighty years,
during the last years of Handel and Scarlatti, and he survived
Beethoven, Schubert and Weber. It is said that Mozart took a theme
from a Clementi sonata for one of his operas. His pupils were quite
famous: John B. Cramer, the composer of many important piano
studies still in use; Johann L. Dussek, one of the first to invent and
write down finger exercises, and there were many others.
There were two schools with Clementi at the head of one, and
Mozart, of the other. With Hummel, a pupil of Mozart, the Classic
School closed, and then Clementi’s ideas came to the fore in the new
Romantic School.
 The New Romantic School

One of the earliest of these new Romanticists was John Field, who
was born in Ireland, visited London, had quite a career in Russia and
foreshadowed Chopin in his playing. Then there was Ferdinand Ries,
son of Beethoven’s early friend and teacher, Franz Ries; but the most
famous of this period were Ignaz Moscheles and Frederick
Kalkbrenner, a fluent composer and writer of studies. He was the
first pianist to teach Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum.
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) was a Bohemian and from about
1815, the most brilliant pianist in Germany, France, Holland and
England. He was Mendelssohn’s teacher. Chopin wrote three études
(studies) on an order from Moscheles. He is a very important figure
in the growing up of piano music.
Carl Czerny (1791–1857) was another very important pianist and
one of the few pupils of Beethoven. He was a follower of Hummel
and Clementi and won great fame as a teacher in Vienna, where he
lived. He wrote a great many pieces, about a thousand in all, making
many arrangements of orchestral works and many piano studies,
which we still use today. Beethoven encouraged him to make a piano
version of his Fidelio. Czerny was the teacher of many able
musicians.
Frederick Chopin, you will find out later (Chapter 24) changed
piano music from the bravura to a poetic and deeper style. His touch
and tone were so enchanting that he created a completely new
fashion in piano playing which has not been lost. (See page 322.)
Clara Schumann (1819–1896), the wife of Robert Schumann, was
the leading woman pianist of the day, in fact, of many days.
In the times of Mozart and of Liszt, improvising (before audiences
and at parlor entertainments), was very popular and a part of a
musical education; around 1795, after the Paris Conservatory was
founded, it seemed to die out. However, organists today often
improvise while waiting for the church service to begin. Dupré, one
of the famous French organists, who has played in the United States,
improvises whole sonatas on given themes.
 After Chopin, Schumann and Schubert there was a great love of
the short piano piece and as the piano was being developed more and
more, it was natural that pianists should become numerous. So piano
playing was heard in the concert hall and in the parlor where it was,
to be sure, often light and frivolous and yet quite often,—serious and
delightful. The light and decorated pieces were usually called salon
music and today many are written which are classed as salon pieces.
Cécile Chaminade, as delightful and clever as her pieces are, is a
typical salon composer, Rubinstein, also, with such pieces as Melody
in F, is a writer of salon pieces, and there are countless others.
Among the people who were prominent as pianists and composers
in that day, especially in Poland, where Chopin was born, were Alois
Tausig, a pupil of Thalberg and Josef Wieniawski, who was the
teacher of the “Lion of Pianists,” Ignace Jan Paderewski.
Around Paris gathered many pianists among whom were Ignace
Leybach an organist and composer at Toulouse, Henry Charles
Litolff the famous publisher, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American
pianist and the author of The Last Hope, and Eugene Ketterer. The
following, with many others, centered around Vienna: Joseph Löw,
Theodore Kullak, Louis Köhler, Gustav Lange and Louis Brassin.
 Dashing Playing

A little later, due to the improvements of the piano, another school

grew up called by some, the Bravura Pianists, because the pieces for
these pianists were written to show off brilliant technic. Most of the
people were flashy pianists, yet there were some very marvelous
performers, for among them, Liszt himself figures and Thalberg, a
Swiss, who was Liszt’s rival for piano honors.
Another set of pianists and composers was Henry Herz, Alexander
Dreyschock, Emil Prudent and Adolph Henselt, a Bavarian, who was
an amazingly poetic and beautiful player.
Practically all these pianists were prominent composers in their
day.
About this time we see women coming into great prominence as
professional pianists. The first one to interest us is Marie Felicité
Denise (Moke) Pleyel, who was Miss Moke, the beloved of Berlioz
and the lady whom he intended to kill but changed his mind! She
was an inspiring teacher, a pupil of Herz, Moscheles and
Kalkbrenner and was admired by Mendelssohn and Liszt.
 The Growth of Violin Music

The same things seem to have happened to violin playing and

violin music at this time as happened to the piano. There was always
the competition between writing fine, deep music and showy,
spectacular music, which, when played, would please an audience.
But the violin was the same then as it had been for years,—the only
advance it had made was the perfecting of the bow by François
Tourte, assisted by Giovanni Battista Viotti, Pugnani’s greatest pupil.
We use his bow today. It has about one hundred white horsehairs,
the tension of which is controlled by a screw at the nut in the finger
grip. But the thing that did affect violinists and violin playing was the
fact of the rise in the 19th century of the orchestra and chamber
music. From the time that madrigals were first accompanied by
instruments, we have heard about Chamber Music, but the string
quartet in sonata form as we know it today, had as its father, Haydn,
and Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) as a godfather. The link between
the Corelli School of violinists and this school was Viotti who was one
of the first men to write a violin concerto in sonata form.
The violinists of this period were also given to bravura playing as
were the pianists. This was a safe thing for great violinists like
Paganini to do, but for the less gifted, it often developed into, not
music at all, but musical calisthenics. Here is the group which
appeared in the early 19th century: Rudolph Kreutzer, to whom
Beethoven dedicated his famous Kreutzer Sonata; Andreas Romberg
(1767–1821) who knew Haydn and Beethoven at Vienna and took
Spohr’s place as concert master at Gotha. He wrote music somewhat
in the style of Mozart. Then comes the “Wizard of the Bow,” Nicolo
Paganini, standing alone and belonging to no school.
He was born in Genoa and began to play in public in 1795, when he
was thirteen years old. A very pretty story is told of Paganini and the
spider:
When Nicolo was a very poor and lonely student, he had a pet
spider that used to listen to him practise. Every time Nicolo would
touch the bow to the strings, out came Mr. Spider to listen
attentively. Now there was a little girl, the daughter of a shop-keeper
near by; she adored the great, tall, slender youth who spent most of
the day and most of the night playing on his violin. She fell ill and
died, and by a curious coincidence, the spider was killed. Paganini
was so overcome by the loss of his admiring comrades that he left
home at once and wandered from place to place, playing the guitar
when he could not get work with his violin.
Later he played all over Europe and had the crowd with him for his
matchless brilliancy in rapid work, his deep pathos and exceptional
beauty of tone. He has probably never been surpassed in double
stopping, chromatics and his pizzicati (plucking the strings). Isn’t it
too bad the greatest violinist in the world lived before the
gramophone was invented, so we have no records of his playing as
we have of Mischa Elman, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Albert
Spalding and Maud Powell!
In this period, Ludwig Spohr was of great importance. He was a
friend of Mendelssohn and, curious enough, was an admirer (one of
the early ones) of Wagner. He had been an intimate of Weber and
played with Paganini at Rome and knew Rossini. His rank as a
violinist was acknowledged. He did not stand for “fire works” but
demanded fine music. He was always a classical musician, for his
early love was Mozart. You will meet him again in the next chapter.
He traveled all over Europe and met many great men and his
autobiography is a rich store of anecdotes and interesting facts.
At this time too, there were many great violinists in France,
Austria, Germany and Italy. We would like to write a whole volume
on the brilliant pianists of the late 19th and 20th centuries such as
Paderewski, De Pachman, Godowsky, Busoni, Rosenthal, Harold
Bauer, Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann, Rachmaninov, Teresa Carreño,
Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Katherine Bacon, John Powell, Percy
Grainger, Levitski and innumerable others!
 More about Radio

1927 witnessed the broadcasting of enchanting concerts by the

Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky, The New York
Philharmonic Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg, The New York
Symphony under Walter Damrosch, Children’s Concerts under
Ernest Schelling and many other organizations. The important
broadcasting companies maintain superb musical organizations and
there is growing up a valuable radio musical field for pleasure as well
as for education. Mr. Damrosch’s musical lectures on the Ring have
elicited nearly one million letters, from all parts of the world!
1929 sees the capitulation of Leopold Stokowski and the
Philadelphia Orchestra to the value of radio in a series of broadcasts.
On many programs are heard the world’s greatest artists.