AMSGNY Meetings

 

Expressions of Queerness and Pre-Feminist Ideologies in the Classic Blues

Jennifer Tullman (Independent Scholar/St. Louis, MO)

 

This paper explores the role of the classic blues, also referred to as urban, city, or vaudeville blues, as a reflection of post-slavery African-American life. Through their songs—the majority of which were written from the perspective of women—classic blues artists sang of independent, assertive women who defied traditional gender roles. This study considers the city blues as a reflection of the unique socio-cultural realities faced by African-American women at this time, examining songs by Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Lucille Bogan, as well as photographs of blues performer Ethel Waters and cabaret artist Gladys Bentley. In addition, this investigation is aided by previous scholarship on the history of the classic blues, the Harlem Renaissance, and life in post-slavery America. 

The classic blues typified the relative independence of the black woman—a reality that existed outside of bourgeois, post-Victorian notions of sexuality and femininity. In the “dirty” or “hokum” blues, these women challenged mainstream ideologies regarding female sexuality with songs that directly addressed the importance of sex. An examination of classic blues songs enriches our understanding of what life was like for African-American women in the 1920s and 30s. Like the women around them, female signers of the classic blues challenged societal norms, pre-dating notions of second- and third-wave feminism, queerness, and sexual equality, in ways that continue to shape American musical expression to this day. 

Dr. Jennifer Tullmann received her doctorate in musicology from the University of Kentucky in May 2019. Her dissertation is titled "Remaking the Iconic Lulu: Transformations of Character, Context, and Music." Jennifer’s research examines feminism, opera, and theater semiotics. She lives in St. Louis with her wife and two cats.

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Lecture-Recital: Stravinsky around the Piano 

Sylvia Kahan

Ravel: Jeux d'eau (excerpt)

Stravinsky: From Three Movements from Petrushka: Chez Petrushka (excerpt)

Debussy: Feuilles mortes, La Puerta del vino, and Les fées sont d'exquises danseuses from Préludes, Book II

Album des Six

Stravinsky: Les cinq doigts

Stravinsky: Piano Sonata

This lecture-recital program took place as part of the conference Stravinsky and France: "My Second Homeland": Reception and Legacy (1910-2010), which took place from 17-20 March 2021 (online), organized under the auspices of the Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique (OICRM), Montréal. The theme is centered on the importance of France in Stravinsky's career. France served as a launching-pad for his career after his collaboration with the Ballets Russes give rise to the instantaneous success of The Firebird (1910). It was a country where the composer lived on and off for nearly thirty years. Stravinsky's creative evolution was influenced by the aesthetic, stylistic, cultural trends in French music during the early 20th-century — and a whole generation of French composers was inspired by Stravinsky's embrace of primitivism and, subsequently, neoclassicism. The recital begins with excerpts from two works featuring the "Petrushka chord." The three Debussy Preludes demonstrate the profound impact that Petrushka had on Debussy during the last half-dozen years of his creative life. The Album des Six, featuring short works by Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Tailleferre, evoke the youthful, insouciant atmosphere of post-1918 Paris. The program closes with two of Stravinsky's piano works from Stravinsky's neoclassical period in the 1920s.  

Sylvia Kahan is a professor of music at both the College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center.  Her book, Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, has been published in both English and French.

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The Sacred Spark of the Beautiful: The Operatic World’s Contributions to Early French Film

Catherine Ludlow (University of Washington)

  

Early French film is full of incredible imagery: documenting everyday life, embracing trick photography, conveying the recent news.  In 1908, internationally renowned Pathé Frères diversified, supporting the new production company Le Film d’Art. 

            Le Film d’Art’s laudable goal was to elevate cinema.  The company attempted to develop filmmaking from a mere craft, designed to entertain the masses, to a legitimate art form.  This was film designed for the cultured, those who attended the theatre and the opera, and the company drew its writers, directors, performers, and designers from the professional stage and literary worlds.  The company however had an additional goal: education.  “Here, cinema resolutely entered the artistic path that is dear to us, where it will be the great educator of the people and will communicate to them the sacred spark of the beautiful.”

            This passage described the 1908 screening of The Assassination of the Duke de Guise, one of Le Film d’Art’s first works.  The film had been created by some of the most respected artists in Paris, and included a newly composed score by Camille Saint-Saëns—but the connections between the musical world and this production company run far deeper.

            While Le Film d’Art’s relationship with the literary world and the Comédie-Française has received some scholarly study, the company’s connections with the operatic world have received little recognition.  This presentation will trace connections between the operatic and cinematic worlds of early 20th c. Paris, focusing particularly on Le Film d’Art and the Opéra-Comique, illustrating the influence that figures from the operatic world had upon the design, aesthetics, stories, and music in film from that era.

Catherine Ludlow is a doctoral candidate in Music History at the University of Washington and the secretary-treasurer of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the AMS.  Her current research examines Realist aesthetics in productions at the Parisian Opéra Comique c. 1900, and the artists who bridged the operatic and early film worlds.  Originally from northern New Jersey, Catherine holds an undergraduate in Theatre Arts and Speech from Rutgers University, as well as a master's in Musicology from Western Illinois University, where she wrote her thesis on Schumann's Manfred and the influence of English Romanticism on the Continent in the nineteenth century.

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“And all is semblative a woman’s part”: Musicality and Gender Fluidity in Twelfth Night

Julie Thompson (Burman University)

Eduardo Sola (Burman University)

Musicality and gender identity are central to Twelfth Night (1599). The centrality of these themes has attracted scholarly attention both in the field of historical musicology as well as English literature; however, these themes are analyzed in conjunction by only a handful of scholars. Most notably, Tan (2001) uses the concept of tonal ambiguity as a metaphor for gender ambivalence, thus problematically applying tonality to late-Renaissance repertoire. In avoiding an anachronistic approach, this paper focuses instead on extra-diagetic elements found in Shakespeare’s text, such as the representation of gender fluidity through references to musicality and their societal meaning.

One salient example is Shakespeare’s use of the name Viola for the protagonist of Twelfth Night. The term viola was used interchangeably throughout Europe to denote instruments in the violin and viol family—both historically associated with the female body (Schoenbaum, 2013). In particular, the intentional literary usages of the term in association to the female body across different narrative modalities -- as well as the popularity of instruments of the violin family in the early modern period -- attests to this link. In Twelfth Night, Shakespeare uses the gender fluidity of Viola/Cesario to frustrate audience expectations of femininity and masculinity. He then further complicates Viola’s gender with competing suitors, Duke Orsino and Olivia, until using the socio-musical associations of her name to objectify Viola back to the feminine sphere and satisfy the expectations of an early modern audience.

Julie Thompson is an Instructor of English at Burman University (Alberta, Canada), where she teaches first-year composition, British, Canadian, and American literature, and theatre. She holds an M.A. degree in women and gender studies from Saint Mary’s University (Nova Scotia, Canada), a B.Mus. degree in voice from Burman University (Alberta, Canada), a B.Ed degree in elementary education from Crandall University (New Brunswick, Canada) and a B.A. degree in English from Crandall University (New Brunswick, Canada). Her research interests currently focus on analyzing stage performance and gender through the lens of psychoanalytic, feminist, and postcolonial theories.

Eduardo Sola Chagas Lima is Assistant Professor of Music at Burman University (Alberta, Canada), where he teaches music history, music theory, and conducts the symphony orchestra (BUSO). He holds a Ph.D. degree in curriculum theory from Andrews University (Michigan, USA), an M.A. degree in musicology from the University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada), a B.Mus. degree in baroque violin from the Royal Conservatorium of Den Haag (The Netherlands), and a B.Mus. degree in violin from EMBAP, Parana State University (Brazil). He has performed worldwide as a baroque and modern violinist. His research interests currently focus on music cognition, music theory, analysis, and music history; and his scholarly work has been featured in academic journals as well as international conferences worldwide.