Description
Book SynopsisExploring the relationship between queer sexuality and music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity approaches modern sexuality by way of music. Through the hidden or lost stories of composers, scholars, patrons, performers, audiences, repertoires, venues, and specific works, this intriguing volume explores points of intersection between music and queerness in Europe and the United States in the years 1870 to 1950--a period when dramatic changes in musical expression and in the expression of individual sexual identity played similar roles in washing away the certainties of the past. Pursuing the shadowy, obscured tracks of queerness, contributors unravel connections among dissident identities and concrete aspects of musical style, gestures, and personae.
Contributors are Byron Adams, Philip Brett, Malcolm Hamrick Brown, Sophie Fuller, Mitchell Morris, Jann Pasler, Ivan Raykoff, Fiona Richards, Eva Ri
Trade Review
Philip Brett Award by the Gay & Lesbian Study Group of the American Musicological Society, 2002
"Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity is a beautifully edited collection of essays devoted to the intersections of music and queerness in Europe and the United States from 1870 to 1950. . . . A stellar contribution to queer music scholarship [and] an essential text for those interested in the modernist period."--Journal of the American Musicological Society
"Anyone interested in music, sexuality, or both undoubtedly will find something new or intriguing in this book and, in the process, will find incontrovertible evidence that the two worlds of sexuality and music were and are intimately connected."--Journal of the History of Sexuality
"This superb collection of twelve essays offers much new research and makes a fine addition to queer musicology. . . . Many of the contributors explore subject matter previously overlooked, veiled, or suppressed, presenting significant new research that draws on primary documents. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice
"A substantial contribution to the developing field of queer studies in musicology. . . . Will become required reading in the field very quickly. . . . A rich source of information about composers and other musicians that we have not had readily available before."--Ruth Solie, editor of Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Secret Passages 1
Sophie Fuller and Lloyd Whitesell
PART 1: PRIVATE PERFORMANCE
1. "Desire Is Consuming Me": The Life Partnership between Eugenie Schumann and Marie Fillunger 25
Eva Rieger
2. Ravel's Way 49
Lloyd Whitesell
3. "Devoted Attention": Looking for Lesbian Musicians in Fin-de-Siecle Britain 79
Sophie Fuller
PART 2: PUBLIC APPEARANCES
4. "He Isn't a Marrying Man": Gender and Sexuality in the Repertoire of Male Impersonators, 1870-1930 105
Gillian Rodger
5. Tchaikovsky and His Music in Anglo-American Criticism, 1890s-1950s 134
Malcolm Hamrick Brown
6. Transcription, Transgression, and the (Pro)creative Urge 150
Ivan Raykoff
7. Musicology and Sexuality: The Example of Edward J. Dent 177
Philip Brett
PART 3: DOUBLE MEANINGS
8. Cross-Dressing in Saint-Saens's Le Rouet d'Omphale: Ambiguities of Gender and Politics 191
Jann Pasler
9. The "Dark Saying" of the Enigma: Homoeroticism and the Elgarian Paradox 216
Byron Adams
10. "An Anthology of Friendship": The Letters from John Ireland to Father Kenneth Thompson 245
Fiona Richards
PART 4: QUEER LISTENING
11. Tristan's Wounds: On Homosexual Wagnerians at the Fin de Siecle 271
Mitchell Morris
12. When Subjects Don't Come Out 293
Sherrie Tucker
Contributors 311
Index 315
