Gendering Musical Modernism

Ellie M. Hisama

This book explores the work of three significant American women composers of the twentieth century: Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer and Miriam Gideon. It offers a unique approach to a rich body of music that deserves theoretical scrutiny and provides information on both the lives and music of these fascinating women, skillfully interweaving history and musical analysis in ways that both the specialist and the more general reader will find compelling. In this important study, Ellie Hisama has employed forms of analysis by which she links musical characteristics with aspects of the composers’ identities. This is revealing both for questions of music and gender and the continuing search for meaning in music. The book thus draws attention to the value of the music of these three composers and contributes to the body of analytical work concerned with the explanation of musical language.

Bibliographic Details

10 b/w illus. 9 tables 25 music examples

Contents

• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of examples
• Foreword Ian Bent
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Note about technical terms
• 1. Cultural analysis and post-tonal music
• 2. The question of climax in Ruth Crawfords String Quartet, third movement
• 3. Inscribing identities in Crawfords String Quartet, fourth movement
• 4. The politics of contour in Crawfords Chinaman, Laundryman
• 5. Gender, sexuality, and performance in Marion Bauers Toccata
• 6. Musical sublimation in Bauers Chromaticon
• 7. A Womans Way of Responding to the World: Miriam Gideons Night is My Sister
• 8. Feminist agency in Gideons Esther
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index.