Women's Voices Across Musical Worlds

by Bernstein, Jane A.

• ISBN13: 9781555535889
• ISBN10: 1555535887
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-30
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

Written by a distinguished group of musicologists and ethnomusicologists, the essays collected here provide a cross-cultural and cross-historical view of the roles women have played as creators and performers and the representation of women in world, popular, and western art music. Organized in five sections, the readings deal with a broad spectrum of topics and approaches about women, gender, and sexuality in music across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas from the twelfth century to the present. Included are such significant themes as class and sexual politics in domestic and professional music making, the sequestration of female musical performance, the lament, gender identity through performance, and women singers as empowered voices of the people. In celebrating the diversity of women's musical voices, this eclectic collection will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in music history, world music, and women's studies.

Author Biography

Jane A. Bernstein is the Austin Fletcher Professor and former Chair of the Department of Music at Tufts University. Her book, Music Printing in Renaissance Venice: The Scotto Press (1539-1572), won the American Musicological Society's Otto Kinkeldey Award for the most distinguished musicological work of the year.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	xi
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction: On Women and Music	3	(10)
Jane A. Bernstein
PART ONE Public Voices, Private Voices
Introduction	13	(5)
The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel and the Mendelssohn Family	18	(18)
Nancy B. Reich
The Illusion of India's ``Public'' Dancers	36	(24)
Carol M. Babiracki
``Fighting in Frills'': Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics	60	(32)
Annegret Fauser
PART TWO Cloistered Voices
Introduction	87	(5)
Music for the Love Feast: Hildegard of Bingen and the Song of Songs	92	(26)
Margot Fassler
Putting Bolognese Nun Musicians in their Place	118	(29)
Craig A. Monson
PART THREE Empowered Voices
Introduction	143	(4)
Voices of the People: Umm Kulthum	147	(19)
Virginia Danielson
``Thanks for My Weapons in Battle---My Voice and the Desire to Use It'': Women and Protest Music in the Americas	166	(21)
Jane A. Bernstein
Tori Amos's Inner Voices	187	(26)
Bonnie Gordon
PART FOUR Lamenting Voices
Introduction	209	(4)
Having Her Say: The Blues as the Black Woman's Lament	213	(19)
Tammy L. Kernodle
Abandoned Heroines: Women's Voices in Handel's Cantatas	232	(29)
Ellen T. Harris
PART FIVE Gendered Voices and Performance
Introduction	257	(4)
The Nightingale and the Partridge: Singing and Gender among Prespa Albanians	261	(24)
Jane C. Sugarman
Women Playing Men in Italian Opera, 1810--1835	285	(23)
Heather Hadlock
Shifting Selves: Embodied Metaphors in Nihon Buyo	308	(19)
Tomie Hahn
Selected Bibliography	327	(14)
List of Contributors	341	(4)
Index	345