The Queer Composition of America's Sound: Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.96 (907 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0520241851 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 293 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-07-12 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Her recovery of the homosexual roots of American musical modernism is ultimately a study in the sexuality of culture itself." - David M. Halperin, author of Saint Foucault; "Compellingly argued and beautifully written, The Queer Composition of America's Sound will no doubt raise controversy, but it will be required reading for musicologists, Americanists, and queer theorists." - Susan McClary, author of Conventional Wisdom" . "What does music have to do with homosexuality, or homosexuality with music? That is the question Hubbs explores through a breathtakingly original history of the mid-twentieth-century gay American composers who produced 'America's sound.' Hubbs shows how sexual desire, aesthetic practice, and social identity shape one another and define specific forms of human consciousness
"Queer as folk, queer as classical" according to Jon Hunt. "The Queer Composition of America's Sound", a new contribution by Nadine Hubbs, tackles a subject which is as fascinating in concept as it is mystifying in content. How is it that the premiere American composers of the twentieth century happened to be identified as gay and to what end has that influenced their compositions?Centering around Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson, whom Hubbs refers to as essentially the "father and mother" of American composers, the author (adding several more composers to "the circle") seeks to build a case aroun. Okay, but there's still Unanswered Questions Jeff Abell When I first heard the title of Nadine Hubbs new book, I remarked to a friend, well, there's one less book I'll have to write. Which is another way of saying, issues about gay American composers, and music and gender in general, interest me (professionally and personally). On some levels, Hubbs is on the right track: noting how the definition of an "American sound" in music (basically, French-influenced neo-classicism) was largely constructed by a group of gay men who formed a closely-knit group of individuals. She also correctly focuses o. More than the title T.N. This book is clearly a labor of love by a scholar who knows and cares about her subject passionately. It is also of value to any more generally interested in cultural history, queer studies, or the history of the arts. There is a far amount of summary and synthesis of the major scholarship in queer studies (Sedgwick, Chauncey, Halperin, etc) but bringing it all to bear on music and composers specifically is mutually illuminating, insofar as queer studies has thus far tended to focus primarily on literature. Thankfully (to this non-musicolo
In this vibrant and pioneering book, Nadine Hubbs shows how a gifted group of Manhattan-based gay composers were pivotal in creating a distinctive "American sound" and in the process served as architects of modern American identity. Focusing on a talented circle that included Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, and Ned Rorem, The Queer Composition of America's Sound homes in on the role of these artists' self-identification—especially with tonal music