Benjamin Britten

2017 ◽  
pp. 453-456
Keyword(s):  
Benjamin Britten

Queering Musical Biography in the Writings of Edward Prime-Stevenson and Rosa Newmarch

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-118
Author(s):  
Kristin M. Franseen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Benjamin Britten ◽  
Twentieth Century Music ◽  
History Of ◽  
Music Research ◽  
Symphonic Music ◽  
Biographical Knowledge

Beginning with the “open secret” of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears's relationship and continuing through debates over Handel's and Schubert's sexuality and analyses of Ethel Smyth's memoirs, biography has played a central role in the development of queer musicology. At the same time, life-writing's focus on extramusical details and engagement with difficult-to-substantiate anecdotes and rumors often seem suspect to scholars. In the case of early-twentieth-century music research, however, these very gaps and ambiguities paradoxically offered some authors and readers at the time rare spaces for approaching questions of sexuality in music. Issues of subjectivity in instrumental music aligned well with rumors about autobiographical confession within Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique) for those who knew how to listen and read between the lines. This article considers the different ways in which the framing of biographical anecdotes and gossip in scholarship by music critic-turned-amateur sexologist Edward Prime-Stevenson and Tchaikovsky scholar Rosa Newmarch allowed for queer readings of symphonic music. It evaluates Prime-Stevenson's discussions of musical biography and interpretation in The Intersexes (1908/9) and Newmarch's Tchaikovsky: His Life and Works (1900), translation of Modest Tchaikovsky's biography, and article on the composer in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians to explore how they addressed potentially taboo topics, engaged with formal and informal sources of biographical knowledge (including one another's work), and found their scholarly voices in the absence of academic frameworks for addressing gender and sexuality. While their overt goals were quite different—Newmarch sought to dismiss “sensationalist” rumors about Tchaikovsky's death for a broad readership, while Prime-Stevenson used queer musical gossip as a primary source in his self-published history of homosexuality—both grappled with questions of what can and cannot be read into a composer's life and works and how to relate to possible queer meanings in symphonic music. The very aspects of biography that place it in a precarious position as scholarship ultimately reveal a great deal about the history of musicology and those who write it.

Benjamin Britten als Friedenskomponist

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah-Lisa Beier
Keyword(s):  
Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
LUCY WALKER
Keyword(s):  
Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-231
Keyword(s):  
Benjamin Britten

Lawrence Set to Music

2020 ◽  
pp. 398-412
Author(s):  
Bethan Jones
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Song Cycles ◽  
Benjamin Britten ◽  
Musical Compositions ◽  
New Generation

This chapter considers a number of ways in which musical composers have engaged with and assimilated Lawrence’s poetry (as well as some of his other works and, indeed, his life story), over a 100-year period. Foregrounding texts selected for musical setting, the chapter begins with an analysis of sound, silence, rhythm, repetition and movement in Lawrence’s verse. Subsequently, it explores the various strategies adopted by composers when setting these poems to music. Some create a song from a single poem; some compose song-cycles by combining poems from within a single collection, such as Birds, Beasts and Flowers. Others juxtapose poems from across a range of Lawrence’s verse-books – or combine Lawrence poems with those of other poets. This chapter explores the implications of such choices, offering analyses of musical compositions in which words and sounds have been creatively combined. Composers discussed include Peter Warlock, Benjamin Britten and Arnold Cooke, alongside a number of lesser-known contemporary figures, whose works (spanning a number of genres) bring Lawrence to a new generation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document