Queering the Pitch

by Philip Brett (Editor), Elizabeth Wood (Editor), Gary C. Thomas (Editor)

When the first edition of Queering the Pitch was published in early 1994, it was immediately hailed as a landmark and defining work in the new field of Gay Musicology. The first collection of its kind, its contributors covered a wide range of subjects from analysis of the work of gay composers to queer readings of Schubert''s Unfinished Symphony. Among the contributors were many then-new scholars, --including the late Philip Brett (one of the editors of the first edition), Susan McClary, Jennifer Rycenga, Paul Attinello, and Martha Mockus--who have since become leaders in the field. In light of the explosion of Gay Musicology since 1994, a new edition of Queering the Pitch is timely and needed. In this new work, the editors are including a landmark essay by Philip Brett on Gay Musicology, its history and scope, which was written for Grove''s Dictionary of Music-but only published in a greatly reduced version, because of its strong political approach. The essay itself has become a cause celebre, and this will be its first full appearance in print. Along with this new historical essay, the editors are contributing a new introduction that outlines the changes that have occurred over the last decade as Gay Musicology has grown

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Feminism

420 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Kate Harper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for an opera class at school... it's a fascinating collection of essays. The best one is about how queer people apparently listen to music differently than the rest of the population.

[Steven Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again, like "Queer Ear"( reviewed earlier) fab/useful,reparatively gay on composers like Smyth's and Schubert's lives and loves (much needed); but reductive, even I say(as an uber gay-gay-gay super-gay man....); music, unless with words(lieder, songs, opera) is ultimately NON- referential: non(harmonic-) resolution, for example, or an unresolved cadence CAN be some vague metaphorical representation of the composer's /character's (if programmatic music) troubled state of mind; but the mechanism making it DEFINITIVELY so is-at best-insubstantial, a childlike(beautifully so!) EKPHRASTIC EQUIVALENCE; at best, disingenuous.

(instrumental)Music is the only art-form where the musical essence {CALL me an essentialist on this.....!}-instrumentation, harmony, structure -is not a sexual or gender identity; though its historical context, and its composer's life, can certainly be.

Remember, we struggle NOT because we are homosexual[QUA], we struggle because hegemonic society makes life difficult to impossible for homosexuals.

Where, there are clear referents (signifiers and signiFIEDS), yes, PLEASE bring on the gay gay gay...literature being a clear example.