Gender and musical performance in mid-nineteenth-century France: the case of Juliette Godillon and the femme d’esprit

Musical performance occupied a central place in nineteenth-century French society. Music acted as a poetic and political medium. The mid-nineteenth-century piano virtuoso Juliette Godillon conducted a sophisticated political argument about the role of technology, the problems of urbanization and the nature of religion through her live performances, unveiling a carefully constructed ‘spectacle’ of sound and [...]