When the first edition of Queering the Pitch was published in early 1994, it was immediately hailed as a landmark and defining work in the new field of Gay Musicology. In light of the explosion of Gay Musicology since 1994, a new edition of Queering the Pitch is timely and needed. In this new work, the editors are including a landmark essay by Philip Brett on Gay Musicology, its history and scope. The essay itself has become a cause celebre, and this will be its first full appearance in print. Along with this new historical essay, the editors are contributing a new introduction that outlines the changes that have occurred over the last decade as Gay Musicology has grown.
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
1 Queering the Pitch: A Posy of Definitions and Impersonations
Wayne Koestenbaum
Part One * CANONS AND ARIAS
2 Musicality, Essentialism, and the Closet
Philip Brett
3 Sapphonics
Elizabeth Wood
4 On a Lesbian Relation with Music: A Serious Effort Not to Think Straight
Suzanne Cusick
5 A Conversation with Ned Rorem
Lawrence D. Mass
Part Two * CHRONICLES
6 Henry Lawes's Setting of Katherine Philips's Friendship Poetry in His Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues, 1655: A Musical Misreading?
Lydia Hammesley
7 Unveiled Voices: Sexual Difference and the Castrato
Joke Dame
8 "Was George Frideric Handel Gay?": On Closet Questions and Cultural Politics
Gary C. Thomas
9 Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music
Susan McClary
10 Eros and Orientalism in Britten's Operas
Philip Brett
11 Queer Thoughts on Country Music and k.d. lang
Martha Mockus
Part Three * CONSORTS
12 Lesbian Compositional Process: One Lover-Composer's Perspective
Jennifer Rycenga
13 Growing up Female(s): Retrospective Thoughts on Musical Preferences and Meanings
Karen Pegley and Virginia Caputo
14 Authority and Freedom: Toward a Sociology of the Gay Choruses
Paul Attinello
Part Four * CODA
Preface
15 Lesbian and Gay Music
Philip Brett and Elizabeth Wood
INDEX
CONTRIBUTORS
Biography
Liz Wood has taught Gay and Lesbian Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and as a adjunct at other colleges and universities. Gary C. Thomas is Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.