Women composers had great difficulty in making their voices heard and gaining recognition during their lifetimes. Even today, they are all too rarely heard in the concert hall or the opera house. In this eight-CD set featuring several hundred performers, the Palazzetto Bru Zane label offers a response as far as nineteenth-century France is concerned. The selections range over chamber music, orchestral works, piano pieces, and songs. They highlight twenty-one female creators, from already identified personalities like Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Pauline Viardot, Marie Jaëll, and Mel Bonis to such unknown figures as Charlotte Sohy, Madeleine Jaeger, Marthe Grumbach, Jeanne Danglas, Hedwige Chrétien, and Madeleine Lemariey.