Unfortunately, the information available about Cianchettini is limited. Female-presenting composers during this time were somewhat scarce and not widely encouraged, to say the least. One such example can be found in this excerpt from a letter from Ernst Rudorff (German conductor, composer, pianist, and teacher, teaching at Berlin Hochschule für Musik at the time) to Joseph Joachim (Austro-Hungarian violinist, composer, conductor, and teacher, teaching at the Königliche Hochschule für Musik at the time) dated December 18, 1881, taken from Nancy Reich’s article “Women as Musicians: A Question of Class:”
"I would like to ask you to consider seriously whether it is right for us to allow women to take part in orchestra classes and performances. They add nothing to the orchestra performances; indeed, I am more and more convinced by the last few rehearsals that the weak and uncertain playing of the young girls not only does no good at all but actually makes the sound indistinct and out of tune…They can learn rhythm and sight-reading in other ways, and they should not be trained to become orchestra players as such anyway. It is bad enough that women are meddling in every possible place where they don’t belong; they have already taken over in almost every area of music. At the very least, we have to make sure that orchestras will not have men and women playing together in the future. It is possible that the general currents are heading in that direction, and in the coming decades we may see the last bit of disciplined behavior and artistic seriousness driven out of public productions of pure instrumental music…Thus I propose that in the new year, which offers the opportunity for a good beginning, the participation of women in orchestra classes and performances come to an end, once and for all."
The irony in this quote is that while Rudorff complains about female-presenting musicians creating an “indistinct and out of tune sound” (which, notably, is likely due to the inadequate music education that was offered to them, as many female-presenting composers did not have access to Conservatory programs or were restricted to specific programs only for female students), he appears fearful of female-presenting musicians when he writes “they have already taken over in almost every area of music.” It seems that he knows what these musicians are capable of and is merely making excuses to justify their erasure from the world of Western classical music.
The opposition of society towards female-presenting composers, along with the lack of widely available general education, let alone music education, during Cianchettini’s time makes her output and the quality of her music all the more impressive. Her musical training was likely somewhat more in-depth than that of some other female composers during this time because of her father’s knowledge as a professional musician. In fact, Cianchettini often referenced her brother J. L. Dussek on the covers of her works, likely to gain credibility and sell more copies. It is important to recognize the privilege that Cianchettini had both as a descendant of musicians and as a white woman from a seemingly well-established family. This does not, however, diminish her accomplishments. Cianchettini appears to have been in the public’s favor because of her extraordinary talent as a composer, teacher, and performer.
Cianchettini’s musical career was not so different from that of the much more well-known composer-performer Clara Schumann. Reich categorizes female-presenting musicians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into two categories: professional and non-professional. The professional category includes musicians who, based on lower social class, were expected to publish and concertize their music to make money, while the non-professional category includes aristocratic and upper-class musicians who composed and performed but were expected to keep these accomplishments private or without financial remuneration. Both Cianchettini and Schumann fall into the former category. For them, music-making was a career. Similar to Cianchettini, Schumann was also born into a musical family and trained as a musician by family members. She married another member of the music business who seems to have been supportive of her career. She composed and performed as a gifted pianist. She was a mother and continued to work after giving birth just as Cianchettini did.
Although Schumann was born much later than Cianchettini, they likely faced many of the same obstacles as female-presenting composers in a pre-20th century Western world. For example, Schumann is known to have been compensated insufficiently for her performances in comparison with her male-presenting counterparts. She once played a concert with her husband and was paid only with a basket of flowers while her husband was paid a tangible wage. There may not be written documentation of discrimination against Cianchettini, but it is possible to make inferences based on the lives of other female-presenting musicians in similar positions. Even in the late eighteenth century, critics shamed some female-presenting artists for failing to be fully present as wives, mothers, and housekeepers. This disapproval of married women who continued to perform and practice sheds light on the perseverance Cianchettini must have had.
“Clara Wieck im Alter von 15 Jahren” painted by Julius Giere in 1835. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
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