Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Follow-up volume to the Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music 1960-2000, winner of the 2017 Society for Music Theory Award for Outstanding Multi-Author Collection
Second in a series of four multi-author essay collections featuring detailed studies of music by women, each focused on different time periods and genres
Authors include some of the most prominent international scholars in the field of music theory and musicology, including Susan McClary, Harald Krebs, L. Poundie Burstein, and Jennifer Bain
Variety of analytical approaches used to gain insight into previously unexplored music

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Description

Through musical analysis of compositions written between the mid-twelfth to late nineteenth centuries, this volume celebrates the achievements of eight composers, all women: Hildegard of Bingen, Maddalena Casulana, Barbara Strozzi, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianne Martines, Josephine Lang, Fanny Hensel, Clara Schumann, and Amy Beach. Written by outstanding music theorists and musicologists, the essays provide fascinating in-depth critical-analytic explorations of representative compositions, often linking analytical observations with questions of meaning and sociohistorical context. Each essay is introduced by a brief biographical sketch of the composer by the editors.

The collection--Volume 1 in an unprecedented four-volume series of analytical studies on music by women composers--is designed to challenge and stimulate a wide range of readers. For academics, these thoughtful analytical essays can open new paths into unexplored research areas in the fields of music theory and musicology. Post-secondary instructors may be inspired by the insights offered in these essays to include new works in music theory and history courses at both graduate and upper-level undergraduate levels, or in courses on women and music. Finally, for soloists, ensembles, conductors, and music broadcasters, these detailed analyses can offer enriched understandings of this repertoire and suggest fresh, new programming possibilities to share with listeners.

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Acknowledgments
About the Companion Website

Chapter 1. Introduction: "Half of Humanity has Something to Say, Also"
Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

PART I: EARLY MUSIC FOR VOICE
Chapter 2. Hildegard of Bingen, O ierusalem aurea civitas (ca. 1150-70)
Varied Repetition in Hildegard's Sequence for St. Rupert: O ierusalem aurea civitas
Jennifer Bain

Chapter 3. Maddalena Casulana, "Per lei pos' in oblio" from Cinta di fior (1570)
Finding the "Air" in Maddalena Casulana's Madrigals
Peter Schubert

Chapter 4. Barbara Strozzi, Appresso ai molli argenti (1659)
Consolation Amid Barbarous Misfortune: Barbara Strozzi's Appresso ai molli argenti and the Mid-Seventeenth-Century Lament
Richard Kolb and Barbara Swanson

PART II: SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY KEYBOARD MUSIC
Chapter 5. Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Sarabandes from the Suites in A minor (1687) and D minor (1707)
In the Realm of All the Senses: Two Sarabandes by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre
Susan McClary

Chapter 6. Marianna Martines, Sonata in A major, I (1765)
"Zierlichkeit und Genie": Grace and Genius in Marianna Martines's Sonata in A major
L. Poundie Burstein

PART III: NINETEENTH-CENTURY LIEDER AND PIANO MUSIC
Chapter 7. Fanny Hensel, "Von dir, mein Lieb, ich scheiden muss" (1841) and "Ich kann wohl manchmal singen" (1846)
Fanny Hensel's Schematic Fantasies; Or, The Art of Beginning
Stephen Rodgers

Chapter 8. Josephine Lang, "An einer Quelle" (1840/1853) and "Am Morgen" (1840)
Josephine Lang's Multiple Settings of Poems by Christian Reinhold Köstlin
Harald Krebs

Chapter 9. Clara Schumann, "Liebst du um Schönheit" (1841)
Multiply-Interrupted Structure in Clara Schumann's "Liebst du um Schönheit"
Michael Baker

Chapter 10. Amy Beach, "Phantoms," op. 15, no. 2 (1892)
Gapped Lines and Ghostly Flowers in Amy Beach's "Phantoms," op. 15, no. 2
Edward D. Latham

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Author Information

Laurel Parsons has taught music theory and aural skills at the University of British Columbia, the University of Victoria, Queen's University, and the University of Oregon. Her research interests include aural skills pedagogy and learning differences, and the music of Elisabeth Lutyens. From 2012-15 she chaired the Society for Music Theory's Committee on the Status of Women.

Brenda Ravenscroft is Professor of Music Theory and Dean of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Her research focuses on post-tonal American music, text and music, rhythmic organization, and pedagogy. She chaired the Society for Music Theory's Committee on the Status of Women from 2006 to 2009.

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Secular & Sacred Music to 1900

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Reviews and Awards

"This book has much to offer, showcasing, as it does, relatively unknown repertoire and employing a variety of analytical approaches... This diversity is also a strength, with music spanning almost 700 years carefully analyzed through a wide range of methods. I highly recommend it." -- Roxane Prevost, University of Ottawa, CAML Review

"In this beautifully produced volume...The essays, well-documented in the endnotes, are illustrated with a wealth of musical examples, tables, and figures...Significantly, this volume offers college and university instructors an engaging body of music analysis, scholarly writing, and writings in music theory to share with their students. Deborah Hayes, College of Music at the University of Colorado Boulder." -- Deborah Hayes, College of Music at the University of Colorado Boulder, Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music

"Studies of the extraordinary music by extraordinary women down the ages have been, happily, multiplying of late, but this volume is particularly welcome in its analytical focus. The slate of scholars is stellar, and so is the music we come to know better with such excellent guides, whose approaches are as various as the music they consider. And brava to the editors and writers alike for recognizing both that profundity can come in small packages and that women can create the most imposing large works as well. It is good to discover that the "testosterone brigade" had formidable female challengers all along." -- Susan Youens, University of Notre Dame

"Important reading for performers and scholars, this rich and revelatory collection of essays expertly demonstrates the inventive depths and compelling skills of historical composers who were women." -- Dr. Sophie Fuller, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (London)

"This new volume of analytical essays edited by Parsons and Ravenscroft is valuable, timely, and impressive. Nine leading scholars provide incisive chapters on music from the 12th to the 19th centuries, revealing deep sensitivity to music and text, masterful counterpoint, compelling narrative, virtuosic metric shifts, Schenkerian poetics, and imaginative genius. I recommend it for undergraduate and graduate courses in music analysis, and as a model and inspiration for further research." -- Yonatan Malin, Associate Professor of Music, University of Colorado Boulder