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LaurelParsons and BrendaRavenscroft (eds), Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). xi + 273 pp. £41.99 (hb). ISBN: 9780190237028.

2022; Wiley; Volume: 41; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/musa.12193

1468-2249

Joe Davies,

History of Medicine Studies

Much has changed in the field of music analysis since Joseph Kerman's ‘How We Got Into Analysis, and How to Get Out’ rippled through the discipline (1980). If Kerman's impassioned call for a move away from formalism towards ‘criticism’ was met with some resistance,1 so it also provided grounds for rethinking the role of analysis in connecting musical material to the wider world.2 One recalls, among other scholarship, Susan McClary's influential accounts of the ways in which music not only represents but actively shapes ideas of gender and sexuality (see also Citron 1993 and 1990; Solie 1993; and Brett, Wood and Thomas 1994). McClary's (1991 and 1994) approach – whether in terms of hearing homosexuality in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, Op. 36, or detecting alternative constructions of masculinity in Franz Schubert's ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D. 759 – has offered profound ways of transforming the question of ‘how to get out of analysis’ into how to engage analysis as a tool for situating music in histories of thought, feeling, sound and sensation. Turning to performance has further broadened the boundaries of what analysis can be and do, with hermeneutic, text-based interpretations giving way to corporeal engagement with music, as seen in the work of Elisabeth Le Guin (2005) and Nicholas Cook (2013), to cite two examples. And as new ways of looking at canonical repertoires continue to develop, important strides are being made towards greater inclusion and representation, among them the curation of the online journal Analytical Approaches to World Music, whose aim is to ‘explore new modes of musical description and understanding capable of navigating the multicultural soundscape of the twenty-first century’ (see https://journal.iftawm.org/ and Tenzer and Roeder 2011). Put simply, what was once a field of study focused on music by European male composers is expanding its parameters to encompass a wider range of people, cultures, methods and repertoires. The mission continues apace with the publication of Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900, the second in a four-volume series pioneered by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft.3 While recent biographies, monographs, edited volumes and articles have done much to bring women's lives and artistry into a more central position in music studies,4 this volume (as with the enterprise as a whole) stands out for its sustained analytical engagement with women composers through the ages and its call ‘to examine what these composers have to say, and how they are saying it’ (p. 2), as the editors frame it in their introductory remarks. On offer throughout is a rich and probing compendium of research that rewards those reading from cover to cover as well as those sampling individual chapters. Part I, ‘Early Music for Voice’, includes essays on Hildegard of Bingen, Maddalena Casulana and Barbara Strozzi; Part II, ‘Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music’, places a spotlight on Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre and Marianna Martines; and Part III, ‘Nineteenth-Century Lieder and Piano Music’, features Fanny Hensel, Josephine Lang, Clara Schumann and Amy Beach. Reflecting on the chronological grouping of the chapters, the editors note that ‘although it may be tempting to view the nearly 750-year span from Hildegard to Beach as a long upward trajectory of increasing opportunity and success for female composers, we urge readers to resist this interpretation and recognize the singularity of each composer's achievement’ (p. 4). In other words, they aim not to map out an ‘unbroken stream of progress’ (p. 5), but rather to illuminate women's compositional creativity in light of their ‘unique constellations of privileges, obstacles, circumstances, and personalities’ (p. 4). A vivid sense of these contexts can be gleaned from the biographical sketches, penned by the editors, that preface each chapter. These, together with lists of further reading and recordings, a glossary of analytical terms and a range of resources (musical examples, recordings and a dance performance) on the companion website, make for a stimulating, multisensory exploration of the subject matter. Among the connective tissues linking the essays is an emphasis on the enterprising nature of women's compositional choices across a range of styles and genres. On the early side of the spectrum is Jennifer Bain's elucidation of the ways in which Hildegard of Bingen's O Jerusalem departs from the standard chant sequence through its use of varied repetition. The result, Bain shows, is the integration of ‘text and music at every level: syllable, word, gesture, musical phrase, verse, and large-scale structure of a poem and a musical work’ (p. 43). L. Poundie Burstein, in his analysis of Marianna Martines's Keyboard Sonata in A major, similarly devotes attention to the manipulation of stock patterns and formal schemata. Thus the drama of this movement, deftly captured by Burstein's analysis, arises through a series of ‘suspenseful delays, surprising usurpations, and delightful twists’ (p. 131), compositional manoeuvres that individuate such underlying patterns (‘shared by many sonata movements’) as the tonic-to-dominant trajectory across the exposition. These manipulations of ‘basic schemata’ suggest, as Burstein puts it, ‘not a want of creativity’, but rather ‘the ability to creatively handle such patterns in the service of art and expression’ (p. 131), a way of understanding Martines's creative choices vis-à-vis the lingua franca of the time. Across the volume, as the authors guide us through their case studies, there is a palpable sense not only of hidden voices coming to light, but also of new analytical pathways emerging. Such is the case in McClary's account of Jacquet de La Guerre's sarabandes from the Suites in A minor (1687) and D minor (1707), where she invites us to ‘open our observations to experiences not typically included in the enterprise of analysis’ (p. 127). Just as these pieces offer ‘the performer and the listener a feast of delights that refuses to remain within a single sensory domain (p. 127)’, so McClary demonstrates the merits of immersing oneself in ‘the minute details of the surface’ (p. 114), those ‘moment-by-moment events’ (p. 126) that stimulate not only the mind and body, but also the ‘olfactory senses’ (p. 125). ‘To describe the downbeat of m. 11 as pungency is not necessarily to deprecate it: think of the stink of a ripe Époisses, which may seem quite alarming until one realizes (or at least a sophisticated connoisseur of cheese realizes) how delicious it will taste’ (p. 125). Here, as in other memorable passages in the chapter, McClary captures the potency of La Guerre's writing, its piquant rhythms and dissonances, and makes a case for engaging multiple senses, not just hearing, as an evocative way into analysing and performing music more generally. Thinking within and beyond established analytical paradigms also extends to Edward D. Latham's exploration of how Amy Beach's ‘Phantoms’, Op. 15 No. 2, conveys the ‘fragile, ethereal quality’ of the piece's epigraph (p. 230), drawn from Victor Hugo's ‘Fantômes’: ‘Toutes fragiles fleurs, sitôt mortes que nées’ (‘Such fragile flowers, dead as soon as they are born’). As with such concepts as depth and interiority, around which much analytical discourse has coalesced (see Watkins 2011 and Ronyak 2018), so fragility emerges from Latham's analysis as a slippery yet hermeneutically palpable idea, one that fluctuates between background and foreground, presence and absence. To illuminate this, Latham draws on Schenkerian techniques and Roman-numeral analysis in refreshing ways – that is, not to impose a predetermined structure, but rather to show moments of harmonic undercutting and concealment, structural gaps that extend also to ‘aurally salient surface features’ (p. 230), such as the activation of the ‘wraithlike eighth registral spectrum’ in the opening A section (p. 239). This critical openness – evident throughout the fusion of technical observations and poetic imagery (see, for instance, the analogy of the theme as a ‘flower that faded immediately after it was born’ on p. 232) – allows the ‘fragility’ of Beach's ‘Phantoms’ to be contextualised in engaging, non-judgemental terms, whereby analytical techniques long associated with unity and connectedness are repurposed to highlight moments of disunity and disconnectedness. All this, as intimated in Latham's concluding remarks, not only is significant for understanding Beach's approach, but also invites ‘further research’ into ‘brokenness or disjunction as an alternative model of tonal structure’ (p. 242). Such findings contribute powerfully to the volume's aim to centralise music by women composers within contemporary analytical discourse; here, as throughout the chapter, there are no signs of marginalising or essentialising the topic of fragility, only a desire to generate meaningful discussion, with Beach's music at the core. In this way, Latham's chapter provides a springboard for conceptualising notions of disunity not as a deviation from a perceived ‘norm’, but as a primary means of structuring musical material. A willingness to rethink analytical paradigms similarly underpins Stephen Rodgers's chapter on Fanny Hensel's Lieder, where he probes the relationship between fantasy and formalism (see also Rodgers 2011). These concepts, Rodgers suggests, ‘need not be seen as contradictory’ (as tends to be the case); rather, Hensel's ‘fantasy-like passages result less from experimentation outside structural archetypes than from experimentation with structural archetypes’ (p. 152; italics in the original). One such example is the ‘avoidance or abandonment’ of the tonic in the opening phrases of her songs – what Rodgers calls ‘Hensel's art of beginning’ (p. 152) – in favour of sudden deflections to the supertonic and submediant. Although on the surface this may give the impression of capriciousness, a sense that the ‘music has suddenly veered off course’ (p. 152), Rodgers shows that at a deeper level the effect of fantasy is conveyed through careful manipulation of harmonic schemata. To reframe the relationship between surface and deeper structure in these terms carries implications both analytical and historiographical. Concerning the former, it provides a vocabulary for further elucidating the intricacies of Hensel's approach, its mingling of strategy and spontaneity, and her contribution to nineteenth-century song. Regarding the latter, Rodgers adds context to the observation of a contemporaneous reviewer that in Hensel's music ‘fantasy is permitted freer rein’ (p. 151), while also offering a wider rebuttal of the pejorative associations between fantasy and female authorship explored at the outset of the chapter. Music-text relationships, together with subtle interplays between the surface and structure, also serve as guiding principles in the chapters by Harald Krebs and Michael Baker. Krebs – adding to his corpus of work on Josephine Lang (see Krebs and Krebs 2007 and Krebs 2015) – takes up the topic of ‘multiple settings’, defined not as ‘variants of a single setting, but [as] significantly divergent takes on a poem’, with a close focus on Lang's ‘An einer Quelle’ and ‘Am Morgen’ (p. 176). He offers a vivid account of the new directions Lang pursued with each setting – namely her choices of key, meter, texture and mood – revealing patterns of similarity and difference across her approach to text-setting and song more generally. Baker too explores the theme of multiplicity, framed as ‘multiply interrupted structure’, in his account of Clara Schumann's ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’, Op. 12 No. 4.5 He elucidates this concept through an examination of the ways in which the inner form of the poem – its ‘dichotomy between refusal and acceptance’ (p. 225) – is mirrored in the relationship between the music's four phrases. Striking here is the way that each phrase incorporates subtle modifications and builds towards the ‘poetic breakthrough’ of the final stanza (p. 225), where changes ‘in dynamics, articulation, musical register, and text setting’ are underscored by the first perfect authentic cadence in the song (p. 221). If Kerman was concerned with ‘getting out’ of analysis, this volume, as highlighted by the chapters discussed above and evident throughout, puts forward a strong case for ‘getting back in again’, this time with women's music as the centre of gravity. That the chapter authors chose their case studies, to borrow the editors’ words, ‘because they find them both musically and analytically intriguing’ (p. 3) is evident from the way the analyses move between bringing to life the intricacies of individual pieces and generating discussion of wider analytical conundrums. Yet the implications of each approach are not confined to individual chapters. Apparent throughout is a sense that the authors are contributing – at some times explicitly, at others implicitly – to a larger analytical dialogue, which gathers momentum as distinct yet complementary approaches intermingle. After reading McClary's chapter, for example, one ponders what a poetics of smell might entail, a question implicitly taken up in Latham's chapter, whose floral imagery is poised for exploration of this kind. Pertinent too is the potential for applying Rodgers's reassessment of the relationship between fantasy and formalism to a broader range of nineteenth-century compositions, including (though not limited to) the Schumann and Lang songs explored by Baker and Krebs. These threads – which multiply with repeated reading – testify to the fascinating wealth of material on offer in this collection. They also offer an invitation to move towards an approach wherein women composers are studied not in isolation, but as part of a larger dialogue in which composers of all genders are placed on an equal footing. The closing remarks that follow are shared not as a criticism of a volume that admirably fulfils its goals, but as way of joining the conversation that the chapters have set in motion. On the topic of inclusion – and with the caveat that all projects have limits – I paused over the framing of the first of the editors’ three goals for the series: ‘to celebrate outstanding music composed by women in the so-called Western classical tradition by according it the same enthusiastic and detailed scholarly attention usually devoted to music by men’ (p. 3). This blend of advocacy and scholarly reorientation is apparent throughout the two volumes published thus far. Questions arise, however, regarding the reference to the ‘so-called Western classical tradition’. To characterise the tradition as ‘so-called’ is to imply a questioning of or critical distance from its mainstream usage. Yet this position is not unpacked further, nor challenged by the selection of composers included in this volume. The overwhelming emphasis on music of the Austro-German sphere enhances the discourse on women's creativity in that locale; it leaves one wondering, though, about how the project might have been diversified through the inclusion of composers from a wider range of geographical contexts.6 Not only would this approach resonate with the editors’ desire to foreground hidden voices and neglected repertoires; it would also add further layers to the discussion of analytical methods. In connection with this, perhaps more might have been done to situate the book's corpus of approaches in relation to recent developments in theory and analysis. Reflection of this kind would highlight the innovations pursued throughout – particularly in cases of new analytical focal points, such as the attention to smell and other senses, but also in terms of showing how familiar methods can be used in fresh ways, as in Latham's chapter, among others. Beyond this – and perhaps such work is planned for future volumes – it would seem an opportune moment to broaden further the parameters of analytical investigation with essays that foreground the intersections between analysis and performance, or that engage more directly with the latest thinking on gender and female authorship. Such additions would add disciplinary context to the editors’ second goal, that is, ‘to create a critical mass of scholarship that would stimulate new research into this repertoire and bring analysis of music by women out of the margins and into the mainstream of contemporary analytic discourse’ (p. 3). In sum, both for its content and for the dialogues it initiates, Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900 (and the series as a whole) is essential reading for those in search of a deeper understanding of women's compositional creativity. The editors have curated a pioneering project that not only transforms how we think about the music under consideration in the volumes published thus far, but also offers an enticing invitation to continue the analytical study of women in music more generally. Open access funding provided by IReL. Joe Davies is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at Maynooth University and the University of California, Irvine. His research centres on nineteenth-century music, its interaction with other art forms and its relationship with notions of authorship, gender and self-fashioning. Among his publications are Clara Schumann Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert, co-edited with James Sobaskie (Boydell & Brewer, 2019). He is currently finishing a monograph on the gothic in Schubert's music for four hands (forthcoming with Boydell), co-editing Clara and Robert Schumann in Context with Roe-Min Kok (Cambridge University Press) and guest-editing with Nicole Grimes a special issue of Nineteenth-Century Music Review on Clara Schumann's legacies. Together with Yvonne Liao, he co-leads the Women in Global Music Research and Industry Network (WIGM), which seeks to further the discussion of women's creative voices and experiences across global contexts.