Multiply unheard and rendered invisible
On the intersectionality of Gerty Landesberger alias Felice Wolmut as an exiled woman in music
Full item page
-
Abstract
- As both gender and exile music research deal with ruptures in biographies and a scatteredness of remaining sources, women musicians affected by escape and exile are often confronted with a double erasure from music history. An example is Felice Wolmut—singer, composer, music therapist and pedagogue—whose estate lies scattered across various archives and whose story and musical creations remain unpublished to this day. Her ego documents draw a fascinating image of an intellectual musician, born in the Vienna of the Fien de Siecle, socialised in Red Vienna, who escaped Nazi Vienna and started a completely new life in exile in the USA. The sources offer insights into Wolmut's views on the artistic and political developments of the time and on the violent, patriarchal societies she was part of. Her autobiography, written in the late 1970s, reveals just as much about the 80-year-old narrating Wolmut as it does about the younger, narrated Wolmut. This article is based on a critical assessment of the sources, asking how they can help construct the historical figure ‘Felice Wolmut’, a woman and a musician whose voice has historiographically been (made) forgotten.
- Date Issued 2025-10-30
-
Authors
Kohl, Marie-Anne | University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
- DOI https://doi.org/10.31265/4h2db448
- Language en
- License CC-BY-NC-4.0
- Subjects Exile Displacement Gender C20 Music Culture Autobiographical Narration Gender-based Violence
-
ÖFOS mit Kunstzweigen