Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music by Susan C. Cook; Judy S.

Tsou;
Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship by Ruth A. Solie
Review by: Lydia Hamessley
Signs, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 475-477
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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 BOOK REVIEWS Hamessley

Hewittand Lebsock introducetheirvolumebyexplainingthatVisible

Women honors Anne Firor Scott's "persistentconcern with historical
vision" (1). Each of theessaysis writtenby a scholarwhose lifeor work
has been affectedby Scott'spioneeringideas and, often,by her active
mentoring.For thosewho know thework of the historianswhose work
is broughttogetherto honor Scott'slegacy,theremay be much that is
familiarin theseessays.For others,thisbook can servethedual purpose
of bringingtogethersome of thebestwork in women'ssocial and politi-
cal historyof thenineteenth and twentieth centurieswhilealso revealing
one oftheimportantintellectualnetworksthathas allowed U.S. women's
historyto be as vital and influential
as it is today.

CeciliaReclaimed:
Feminist on Genderand Music.Editedby
Perspectives
Susan C. Cook and JudyS. Tsou. Urbana:University
of IllinoisPress,
1994.

and Difference:
Musicology Genderand Sexualityin MusicScholarship.
Edited
by RuthA. Solie. Berkeleyand Los Angeles:University
of CaliforniaPress,
1993.

Lydia

T B
Hamessley

L E SS ED CECILIA,"
daughter,"inspiring
we call the
Hamilton

and
College

"innocentvirgin,""translated
startling:the fifteenth-century
martyr patron saint of music.1What does it
mean to reclaimthisimage? On the cover of Cecilia Re-
claimed is Max Ernst's1923 image of Cecilia, one high-heeledshoe in
view, playingan organ and emergingfromthe armor-likestones that
encase her.These stonesare coveredwitheyes,and thereis a mechanistic
qualityto theleversand ropesthatrestin and on thestones.This Cecilia
does herown reclaiming.In like manner,as Susan McClary statesin her
forewordto thiscollection,theseessaysunmaskelementsof misogynyin
music,revealingtheways thatmusiccan inscribegenderand the extent
to which genderand misogynyhave shaped musical practices.Editors
Susan Cook and JudyTsou have assembled an arrayof scholarswho
employ interdisciplinary approaches such as women's history,feminist
literarycriticism,black feministtheory,sociology,media studies,and

W. H. Auden, "AnthemforSt. Cecilia's Day, I," CollectedShorterPoems, 1927-

1957 (London: Faber & Faber, 1966), 173-74.

Winter 1996 SIGNS 475

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Hamessley BOOK REVIEWS

anthropologyin orderto demonstrate"how musicalactivitycan be re-

read throughgenderand how musiclikewisehelpsdefinewhat it means
to be male or femalein a giventimeor place" (2). The collectionincludes
essays dealing with issues of race and class; no essayist,however,con-
templateslesbian identity, a limitationthatthe editorsacknowledge.
At the outset,the essayschallengeacceptedparadigmsin musicology
and feministstudiessuch as the "paradigmof autonomy,"the mythof
universalresponse(Marcia Citron),and the notionof theprivate/public
split(Jennifer Post). Othercontributors examinethegendereddiscourse
aroundmusicand musicalpractice,particularly as itparallelsdebateson
women (Linda Austern,PatriciaHoward, CatherineParsonsSmith).Of-
tenreclaimingis done by reexaminingthe storieswe tellabout our lives
(AdrienneFriedBlock,JaneBaldauf-Berdes) or byrecognizing thepower
that genderhas to shape musical genres(Bonny Miller, Venise Berry,
Cook). One ofthecollection'smostwelcomefeaturesis thatin each essay
the reader is enmeshedin a genre,a time period, an issue, a life,an
identity:fromsonata formto rap, Frenchopera to murderballades,the
EnglishRenaissance to AmericanModernism,VictorianNew England
child-rearing practicesto Venetianeconomicsand politics,Hindu women
freeto worshipthroughsong to Japaneserestrictions on geishas.Thus,
Cecilia Reclaimed adds a fresh voice to the recent upsurgeof feminist
scholarship in the musicologicalliterature, and it is inviting
particularly
forthenonspecialistin music.The scholarshipis rigorousand thorough,
but the writingis not overlydependentupon specialized jargon and
theories.
There is a similaritybetweenCecilia Reclaimedand Musicologyand
Difference.Both gatherthe work of prominentmusicscholarswho em-
phasize genderstudiesand feministmethodologies;readersof Musicol-
ogyand Difference, however,will need to be moreversedin thespecial-
ized language of music. Further,while Musicology and Difference
includesessays on gay and lesbianthemes,it does not deal overtlywith
issues of race, and popular musicis not part of the book's agenda. Ex-
aminationsof ethnicity, Orientalism,and non-Western culturesdo ap-
pear,butthebulkof theessaysfocuson Westernartmusic.Nevertheless,
all readersinterestedin questionsof difference will findthiscollection
enlightening.The essays run the gamut of possibilities:some analyze
"systemsof difference" while othersdeal with the "culturalcontextof
difference"; severaltestvarious "interpretive strategies"based on differ-
ence, and othersoffer"criticalreadings"of difference. One of the most
valuable featuresof thiscollection is Ruth Solie's "Introduction: On 'Dif-
ference' " in which she exploresthe "terrain of the difference debate" (3).
She places each essayalong thislandscapepopulatedbytheoristssuch as
Luce Irigaray,Gayatri Spivak, Kaja Silverman,Melissa Orlie, Hester

476 SIGNS Winter 1996

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 BOOK REVIEWS Hamessley

Eisenstein,Elaine Showalter,ChristineBattersby,and Martha Minow,

among others.
The contestednatureof the notionof difference is apparentfromthe
start.Leo Treitler'stroublingand controversialessay beginsas a prom-
isingexaminationof the dualitiesinherentin our conceptsof race, na-
tionality,and ethnicitythrough the archetypal duality of gender
(female/male).Yet Treitler'sarticlequicklyfolds into a critiqueof the
work of Susan McClary in which he constructsan uneasy alignment
betweenher writingson genderand proto-Nazi propaganda on race.
Music itselfis seen as "different" in followingessaysthatexploremusic
as Other: "Music has power ... preciselyto the extentto which...
people have been persuadedthat it is peripheraland marginal,of little
consequenceto the importantsocial and politicalconcernsof the day"
(JohnShepherd,51). This positionrendersmusic "so veryresistantto
critique"(Barbara Engh,79). Some authorschallengerigidWesternno-
tionsofgenderor class (JudithTick,Carol Robertson,Nancy Reich),and
othersread difference throughworksby men-the opera, thesymphony,
and thepiano characterpiece (PhilipBrett,GretchenWheelock,Carolyn
Abbate,LawrenceKramer,McClary). Amongthemostrefreshing essays
are thosein whichtheauthorsassumedifferent subjectpositionsfortheir
analyses-the opera queen (MitchellMorris) or the insider/outsider eth-
nographer(Ellen Koskoff)-and those that tease out hidden,resisting,
and subversivelayersof meaningin women'slivesand works (Elizabeth
Wood, Suzanne Cusick).
Musicologyand Differenceand Cecilia Reclaimedpresenta rangeof
feministapproaches in musicologyas sourcesthat anyone interestedin
music'spowerto constructand deploygenderand sexualityshouldread.
Frequentlythose of us who analyze music in thisway are told thatwe
take the joy out of the music, that these symphonies,spiritualsongs,
piano works,ballades, rap tunes,and operas are intendedforpleasure
and thatto unpack theirsometimesmisogynist procedures,or to expose
theirplace in a largerculturaland politicalframework, their
demystifies
beautyand power.Solie answersthischargein herintroduction:"What
is our investment in the 'safe place' of art,of theseprivilegedobjectswe
have come to love? . . . Culturalartifactsand practices,worksof art,are
perhapsthe mostvaluable belongingsof a civilization.... It mattersto
whom theybelongand who is empoweredto speak about them.It mat-
tersabout whom theyspeak, and what theysay" (20). In exploringthis
terrain,both collectionsreclaimthevoice, the power,and the joy in the
musictheycontemplate.

Winter 1996 SIGNS 477

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