Reviews for Queer noises

The average rating for Queer noises based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-12-26 00:00:00 David A Hills This was a really interesting collection of essays hitting a pretty niche topic -- music and queer identity in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The essays are: 1. About the relationship between Eugenie Schumann (Clara & Robert's daughter) and Marie Fillunger (a singer). The two of them lived in Clara's house for awhile with Eugenie's older sister until there was a falling out and Marie went to make her fortune in England. After Clara's death and towards the end of their lives the two of them lived close to, but not in the same house with that same older sister. The essay talks about other women in the same time period who didn't marry men and lived with other women who Eugenie and Marie might have known. 2. About how Ravel was extremely secretive about his private life, a bit of a dandy, and how that might indicate that he was gay. Since not much is known about Ravel, the essay's author talks about gayness in Paris during the time period and how it was mocked/punished/etc. 3. About "Looking for Lesbian Musicians in Fin-de-Siecle Britain" which didn't leave a huge impression on me but included some discussion of setting love songs about women to be sung by a female voice. 4. About male impersonators and how the performers went from really trying to look and act male, joking with the audience and sharing repertoire with male singers to trying to look like women in men's clothing, moving to more scripted acts, and sharing repertoire with other female impersonators (and singing soprano). Some of the earlier male impersonators married women by dressing male while signing papers. 5. About how music critics started reacting to Tchaikovsky differently the more they knew he was gay. 6. About how piano transcriptions of orchestral works were seen as transgressive. This chapter reminded me of reactions to fanfiction. It relied heavily on comparisons between Robert and Clara Schumann vs. Liszt -- Robert composes and Clara brings the music forth (performs it) whereas Liszt performs something he transcribed, so it's not exactly what the original composer intended & it's all very gay. 7. About how musicology was an attempt to make music more "serious" and "masculine" by making a science out of it, and how gay musicologist Edward Dent fought against that. (Unsuccessfully). 8. About the different meanings of Hercules for the French and how Saint-Saens played with that in "Le Rouet d'Omphale" and how Saint-Saens enjoyed cross-dressing and hung out with Pauline Viardot and Augusta Holmes. 9. About how Elgar was very secretive but littered clues about what was going on with him all over the place, including in the Enigma Variations which was dedicated to more men than women, and was Elgar play-acting as his friends in order to write music differently, and also how Elgar leaned in to the role of British Gentleman so hard he pretended to have nothing to do with music whatsoever, and made his wife sell his violin to buy a billiards table. 10. About the details of John Ireland's life that are revealed in his letters to Kenneth Thompson. He was gay and admired younger men. And also boys?? 11. About how there were a group of homosexual men who connected with each other over love of Wagner, but the sources are mainly this one novel from 1909, and also some discussion of how Wagner might have been gay, but was definitely obsessed with clothes and had a close friendship with Ludwig II. 12. A discussion of the ethics of being a historian trying to shine light on the LGBT community of the past when your subjects don't want you to talk about it. Specifically Sherrie Tucker's experience interviewing women who played big-band music in the 1940's who wanted her to concentrate on the music and not focus on private lives. My favorites were essays 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-11-20 00:00:00 Michael Ewers Slonimsky, N. & Kuhn, L. (1992). Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians. Farmington: Cengage Gale. Citation by: Amy Williams Type of Reference: Bib-graphical Reference Call Number: Ref 780.922 Content/Scope: A biographical reference on musicians. This book gives information on 20th century jazz and popular musicians. The best feature is its expansion into six volumes. Accuracy/Authority/Bias: There are more than fifty contributors to this book. The biographies can be anywhere from a few lines to several pages. Arrangement/Presentation: The personalities covered in the book are indexed by nationality, genre, and time period in six volumes. Relation to other works: This will fit into our reference collection because we are graded as a school on how we integrate the arts and humanities into the classroom. This is something students can look at to learn more about music from the past. Accessibility/Diversity: This book can be read by elementary students, the six volumes contain different genres of music. Cost: $595 Professional Review: Bollerman, J. A. (2001). Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians (Book Review) (Undetermined). Reference & User Services Quarterly, 41(2), 199-200.