In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Journal of the History of Sexuality 12.3 (2003) 498-500



[Access article in PDF]
Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity. Edited by Sophie Fuller and Lloyd Whitesell. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 324. $39.95 (cloth).

This is an aptly titled collection of twelve essays that possesses the typical strengths and weaknesses of an anthology: multiple authors, subjects, approaches, and styles will appeal to a variety of readers and their purposes, while that same eclecticism requires more effort to discern themes and points. The book is indeed "episodic," ranging over both the production of music by composers and performers and its reception by critics and audiences, and limited only by time (1870-1950) and place (the West, with emphasis on the Anglo-American world—seven essays concern British or U.S. subjects). The result, however, is fascinating and ultimately makes a convincing case for the links between two histories that at first glance seem merely parallel: figures and developments in music history as it moves from romanticism to the modern and the now well-known saga of the emergence of the "homosexual" as an identity in the West with its attending paradoxical relationship between "repression" and "liberation."

Beyond the period and regions, two premises unite the essays. First, sexuality is not only an important attribute of creative people to be taken seriously by musicologists but perhaps one with special resonance in this era. The second is that larger contexts are important to understanding these people, their works, and the reception of others to both, an assumption hardly surprising to historians but relatively new to musicology. Thus it is refreshing to see so much attention to the political and social milieus of the subjects.

Who are these subjects? Individuals treated are Eugenie Schumann (Robert and Clara's daughter), Maurice Ravel, music scholar Edward J. Dent, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edward Elgar, and John Ireland. The remaining chapters concern groups (lesbian musicians in fin-de-siècle Britain, American male impersonators, "homosexual Wagnerians," and women from "all-girl" American big bands), music's transcription, and music's reception (Anglo-American criticism of Tchaikovsky). Claims for the link between sexuality and music, present in all essays, range from the exploration of meanings of behaviors, as in coeditor Whitesell's investigation of Ravel's notorious privacy in the context of his era, to direct links between sexuality and the scores in part 3 ("Double Meanings"), to Philip Brett's blunt assertion in "Musicology and Sexuality: The Example of Edward J. Dent" that "unregulated music is potentially as dangerous as unregulated sex to the concept of order in capitalist society" (177). Brett's essay, in fact, should be required reading for all budding musicologists for its deft interweaving of Dent's ideas, his circle, the musical and social ideas of his time and probably the most brilliant single paragraph in print summarizing musicology's development (179-80). [End Page 498]

All this is to say that the collection is impressive in demonstrating how rapidly musicology has matured beyond simple "outings." While sexuality is the central feature here, and the perennial question—"was s/he or wasn't s/he?"—does appear, in general, these authors demonstrate how individuals can reveal the limitations of this question. The contributors examine sex and gender continua in the context of their subjects' times rather than force a simple homo-hetero dichotomy onto them.

In these rich accounts of this crucial era of both sexual and musical history, several smaller themes emerge. One is the importance of class, especially as it intersects with sex, gender, and culture (race is nearly nonexistent in these essays, given the topics). Another is the need to treat males and females within different frameworks: most of the essays of necessity explore gender and sex divisions as they affect music, the central paradox being the simultaneous feminization (or "privatization")and professionalization of music, rendering neither males nor females completely appropriate practitioners. The result is the need to treat men and women each in their "spheres" of societal expectations (class is once again...

pdf