Full Description
This outstanding collection of Susan McClary's work exemplifies her contribution to a bridging of the gap between historical context, culture and musical practice. The selection includes essays which have had a major impact on the field and others which are less known and reproduced here from hard-to-find sources. The volume is divided into four parts: Interpretation and Polemics, Gender and Sexuality, Popular Music, and Early Music. Each of the essays treats music as cultural text and has a strong interdisciplinary appeal. Together with the autobiographical introduction they will prove essential reading for anyone interested in the life and times of a renegade musicologist.
Contents
Contents: Introduction: the life and times of a renegade musicologist; Bibliography; Part I Interpretation and Polemics: Pitches, expression, ideology: an exercise in mediation; The blasphemy of talking politics during Bach Year; Narrative agendas in 'absolute' music: identity and difference in Brahms's 3rd symphony; Terminal prestige: the case of avant-garde music composition. Part II Gender and Sexuality: A material girl in Bluebeard's castle; Stuctures of identity and difference in Bizet's Carmen; Constructions of subjectivity in Schubert's music. Part III Popular Music: 'Same as it ever was': youth culture and music; Living to tell: Madonna's resurrection of the fleshly; Thinking blues. Part IV Early Music: The cultural work of the madrigal; Cycles of Repetition: Chacona, Ciaccona, Chaconne, and the Chaconne; Index.
