In the 19th century, with the somewhat belated recognition of the worthiness of history and biography
of famous musicians and composers, care for their estates and legacies became more relevant. Fuelled
by that, a constantly increasing amount of relevant writing both scholarly and non-scholarly
produced in close connection to the then-flourishing set of bourgeois ideals and normative values,
affected conceptions of nearly exclusively male-connotated creative genius. This implicitly leads to a
distinct image of professional creative musicianship that has dominated the respective discourse, not
only in public, but amongst specialists as well. Also, a specific group identity has been created, along
with a permanentpresencewithin what Aleida Assmann calls functional memory
(Funktionsgedächtnis), influencing musical canon. In contrast, female creatives initially usually only
attained a place within more passive stored memory (Speichergedächtnis) provided their respective
estates and legacies were considered worth of preservation, which is to be regarded as the crucial
preliminary stage of tradition. In their individual composition, these estates may help understanding
what was important to their former owner, being collections, but at the same time materialised re-
collections as well, following the current scholarly agreement that memories are essential to the
formation of the notion of a (professional) Self. Thus, by drawing on the women musicians and
composers increasing (self-)perception as history-worthy from mid-19th century to present, a gradual
development of a specific functional memory of female musical professionalism leads to enforced
preservation of their estates and the production of autobiographical accounts to serve as memory
storage in a reciprocate way. An interaction is created with impact also on the discourse and evaluation
of female creativity within expert music critics and public discourse, influencing both individual and
collective memory.
In order to investigate this connection, the estates and/or legacies of six female musicians and
composers from mid-19th century to near present are examined and mutually compared for their
specific structure and preservation status generally. Also, more specifically, their respective
autobiographical writings (understood as a part of their consciously traded legacy, while keeping in
mind that autobiographical memory itself depends on socially and culturally constructed narratives)
are analysed: Luise Adolpha Le Beau, Ethel Smyth, Mary Dickenson-Auner, Elly Ney, Grete von
Zieritz and her daughter, Hedi Gigler-Dongas, hence covering the generational range of long 19th
century to postmodernity in Great Britain, Germany and Austria and also promising concrete insights
in the specifics of said dynamics during Nazi time.