MTU Library Catalogue

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Women's voices across musical worlds / edited by Jane A. Bernstein.

Contributor(s): Bernstein, Jane A.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: Boston : Northeastern University Press, c2004Description: xvi, 353 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. + pbk.ISBN: 1555535895 (hbk.); 1555535887 (pbk.).Subject(s): Feminism and music | Gender identity in music | Women musicians | Music -- Social aspectsDDC classification: 780.82
Contents:
Public voices, private voices -- Cloistered voices -- Empowered voices -- Lamenting voices -- Gendered voices and performance.
Summary: This book is the first to explore the musical activities and expressions of women from a thematic perspective. 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
3 day loan MTU Cork School of Music Library Desk Loan 780.82 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00175318
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An exploration of the musical activities and expressions of women from a thematic perspective, this collection of essays provides 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 art music.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-340) and index.

Public voices, private voices -- Cloistered voices -- Empowered voices -- Lamenting voices -- Gendered voices and performance.

This book is the first to explore the musical activities and expressions of women from a thematic perspective. 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.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Illustrations (p. xi)
  • Acknowledgments (p. xv)
  • Introduction: On Women and Music (p. 3)
  • Part 1 Public Voices, Private Voices
  • Introduction (p. 13)
  • Chapter 1 The Power of Class: Fanny Hensel and the Mendelssohn Family (p. 18)
  • Chapter 2 The Illusion of India's "Public" Dancers (p. 36)
  • Chapter 3 "Fighting in Frills": Women and the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Politics (p. 60)
  • Part 2 Cloistered Voices
  • Introduction (p. 87)
  • Chapter 4 Music for the Love Feast: Hildegard of Bingen and the Song of Songs (p. 92)
  • Chapter 5 Putting Bolognese Nun Musicians in their Place (p. 118)
  • Part 3 Empowered Voices
  • Introduction (p. 143)
  • Chapter 6 Voices of the People: Umm Kulthum (p. 147)
  • Chapter 7 "Thanks for My Weapons in Battle--My Voice and the Desire to Use It": Women and Protest Music in the Americas (p. 166)
  • Chapter 8 Tori Amos's Inner Voices (p. 187)
  • Part 4 Lamenting Voices
  • Introduction (p. 209)
  • Chapter 9 Having Her Say: The Blues as the Black Woman's Lament (p. 213)
  • Chapter 10 Abandoned Heroines: Women's Voices in Handel's Cantatas (p. 232)
  • Part 5 Gendered Voices and Performance
  • Introduction (p. 257)
  • Chapter 11 The Nightingale and the Partridge: Singing and Gender among Prespa Albanians (p. 261)
  • Chapter 12 Women Playing Men in Italian Opera, 1810-1835 (p. 285)
  • Chapter 13 Shifting Selves: Embodied Metaphors in Nihon Buyo (p. 308)
  • Selected Bibliography (p. 327)
  • List of Contributors (p. 341)
  • Index (p. 345)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

For this dazzling scholarly collection, Bernstein (Austin Fletcher Professor of Music, Tufts Univ.; Music Printing in Renaissance Venice) commissioned 13 musicologists and ethnomusicologists to write on women and music in a variety of cultures, styles, and time periods. Subjects range from jazz singers to 16th-century nuns, "public" dancers in India to the Prix de Rome in France, protest music in the Americas to 19th-century Italian opera, and Japanese women dancers to Tori Amos. Instead of using a chronological, geographical, or methodological organization, Bernstein groups the essays into five thematic sections-"Public Voices, Private Voices," "Cloistered Voices," "Empowered Voices," "Lamenting Voices," and "Gendered Voices and Performance"-prefacing each with an enlightening essay that explores how the themes are connected. The individual essays are all fascinating and well expressed, and the editor's sectional introductions bring a high level of unification to the seemingly disparate contents. Highly recommended for academic libraries serving musicology students.-Timothy J. McGee, Hastings, Ont. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

This exceptionally impressive volume reveals both the depth and breadth of current scholarship about women in music. Its cross-cultural and cross-historical approach, extending popular music, makes it ideal supplementary reading in music courses looking at women. Many of the essays offer analytical models for independent research as well as stimulus for further exploration or discussion by students. Though the subjects of the essays are diverse--ranging from Hildegard's settings of the Song of Songs (by Margot Fassler) to the politics of the Prix de Rome (Annegret Fauser) to the Arab singer Umm Kulthm (Virginia Danielson) and from wedding songs of Albanian women (Jane Sugarman) to female travesty performers (Heather Hadlock) to Handel's construction of lamenting women (Ellen Harris)--the collection is unified and focused as a result of its organization around five thematic sections, each with a superb introduction by Bernstein (Tufts Univ.). Each part focuses on an issue surrounding women's voices (public-private, cloistered, empowered, lamenting, and gendered in performance) and each comprises varied case studies, almost all of which are outgrowths or reworkings of previous or ongoing research. The contributors are truly experts, thus the consistently high quality of the essays. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division through faculty and professionals; general readers. J. M. Edwards emerita, Macalester College