Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life by Denise Von Glahn (review)

When Libby Larsen was a little girl, her constant chatter so disturbed her father's command of the family dinner table that her parents attempted to bribe her into silence. If she could keep quiet during the evening meal for two weeks, they promised her a much-coveted doll. Young Libby tried, but ultimately failed the challenge. In Larsen's words, "I tried so hard, probably only for two days, but it felt like the rest of my life, and finally I just burst out and said 'I can't do it,' and they didn't give me the doll. And I realized then that they didn't actually want to communicate. They actually didn't want to communicate with me. … I just thought at that point, well screw it. I'll go find my own system to communicate" (p. 11).

This episode stayed with me while reading Denise Von Glahn's new biography Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life. In it, one sees the seeds of the life about to unfold. The child Libby, so desperate to be heard, found her "own system to communicate" in the musical notation that the nuns taught her in first grade. Decades later, now a successful composer, communication forms the core of her aesthetic.

Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life is a welcome addition to the growing number of biographies about women composers. Larsen has crafted a career independent of academic affiliation, far from the major music centers on the East and West Coasts. Place is important to her life and work. And Minnesota is her place. She is an outlier by choice, and she thrives.

Von Glahn's biography of this maverick composer is, fittingly, a bold experiment in the genre. Instead of following a straight chronological narrative or a life-and-works approach, Von Glahn organizes her book thematically, its chapters reflecting what Larsen identifies as the most powerful influences in her life: family, religion, nature, the academy, gender, and technology. The author adds a chapter at the beginning to provide a cultural context for the composer's life and a chapter at the end that discusses Larsen's collaborators and critics. The composer is an enthusiastic participant in the project, opening up her extensive archive and sitting for hours of interviews with the author over the course of several years.

Von Glahn admits an affinity for her subject. The two women are similar in age and backgrounds, they are both mothers, and they share many interests, experiences, and values. In a thought-provoking preface considering "the biographical endeavor," Von Glahn writes, "Empathy, while invaluable to any biographer, brings with it its own dilemmas, and separating subject and self requires vigilance and honesty" (p. xv). She is keenly aware that in writing about a living subject the author becomes part of the story, and she maintains a transparency throughout that avoids any suggestion of hagiography. Indeed, Larsen proves to be as critical an observer of her own life as her biographer, and the work is richer for the rapport that develops between the author and her subject.

The thematic organization carries the composer's life narrative well. Larsen grew up Catholic, singing chant and participating in the rituals of the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church. Although she was only twelve at the time of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the changes it wrought, especially changes to the liturgy she had grown to love, ultimately led her to leave the church. Nature became her religion. In the early chapters, Von Glahn explores how Larsen's experience of religion and nature during her formative years shaped her musical credo. "You could say that nature equals religion," Larsen states. "If the grace of religion is to inspire reflection on being, then that's music. Music is reflection on being, which is in all...