What is it about?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08145857.2014.911059 A review article examining the legacy of the following volumes: Richard Leppert Sound Judgement: Selected Essays Ashgate Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology Series Aldershot, England, and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2007, xxiv, 331 pp. ISBN 978 0 7546 2683 1 (hardcover) Susan McClary Reading Music: Selected Essays Ashgate Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology Series Aldershot, England, and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2007, xxiv, 352 pp. ISBN 978 0 7546 2672 5 (hardcover) Steven Baur, Raymond Knapp, Jacqueline Warwick (eds.) Musicological Identities: Essays in Honour of Susan McClary Aldershot, England, and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2008, xiv, 264 pp. ISBN 978 0 7546 6302 7 (hardcover)

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Why is it important?

Gender studies in music, along with de-colonisation of the canon, have been arguably the most important developments in the field of the last half-century. The work and legacy of two of the pioneers in feminist musicology deserves ongoing spotlight.

Perspectives

For this writer, McClary’s and Leppert’s work has been a life-changer since I first encountered them in their co-edited book, Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception. It was McClary’s chapter in this collection, ‘The Blasphemy of Talking Politics During Bach Year’, the one I read first, that dissolved a bifurcation of ‘absolute’ music from life that I’d operated by, without question, happily enough until that moment. Since then, the way I view, hear, consider and interpret music is inescapably informed by the insights these authors have imparted about music’s function as reflection of ideology, society and identity. And I know this is the case for many, many others in the profession.

Linda Kouvaras
University of Melbourne

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This page is a summary of: ‘Effing the Ineffable’:1The Work of Susan McClary and Richard Leppert and (Part of) their Legacy, Musicology Australia, January 2014, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/08145857.2014.911059.
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