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{{Short description|American musicologist}}
{{Undue weight|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox writer | name = Susan McClary
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| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1946|10|02}}
| birth_place = [[St. Louis]], Missouri
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'''Susan Kaye McClary''' (born October 2, 1946)<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Pasler|first=Jann|title=McClary, Susan (Kaye)|encyclopedia=[[Grove Music Online]]|doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.46978}}</ref> is an American [[musicologist]] associated with
==Early life and education==
McClary was born in [[St. Louis]], Missouri, and received her BA in 1968 from [[Southern Illinois University]]. She attended graduate school at [[Harvard University]] where she received her MA in 1971 and her PhD in 1976. Her doctoral dissertation was on the transition from [[Mode (music)|modal]] to [[Tonality|tonal]] organization in [[Claudio Monteverdi|Monteverdi]]'s works. The first half of her dissertation was later reworked and expanded in her 2004 book, ''Modal Subjectivities: Self-fashioning in the Italian Madrigal''. She taught at the [[University of Minnesota]] (
==Career==
{{BLP sources section|date=August 2020}}One of her best known works is ''Feminine Endings'' (1991).
McClary suggests that [[sonata form]] may be interpreted as [[sexist]] or [[misogynist]]ic and [[imperialist]]ic, and that, "tonality itself – with its process of instilling expectations and subsequently withholding promised fulfillment until climax – is the principal musical means during the period from 1600 to 1900 for arousing and channeling desire." She interprets the sonata procedure for its constructions of [[gender]] and sexual identity. The primary, "masculine" key (or first subject group) represents the male self, while
McClary set the feminist arguments of her early book in a broader sociopolitical context with ''Conventional Wisdom'' (2000). In it, she argues that the traditional musicological assumption of the existence of "purely musical" elements, divorced from culture and meaning, the social and the body, is a conceit used to veil the social and political imperatives of the worldview that produces the classical canon most prized by
While seen by some as extremely radical, her work is influenced by musicologists such as [[
=="Constructions of Subjectivity in Franz Schubert's Music"==
According to McClary, Schubert, in the second movement of his ''Unfinished Symphony,'' foregoes the usual narrative of the [[sonata form]] by "wandering" from one key area to another in a manner which does not consolidate the tonic, but without causing its violent reaffirmation:
<blockquote>What is remarkable about this movement is that Schubert conceives of and executes a musical narrative that does not enact the more standard model in which a self strives to define identity through the consolidation of ego boundaries...in a Beethovian world such a passage would sound vulnerable, its tonal identity not safely anchored; and its ambiguity would probably precipitate a crisis, thereby justifying the violence needed to put things right again.<ref>McClary (1994) p. 215{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2020}}</ref></blockquote>
While maintaining that attempting to read Schubert's sexuality from his music would be [[essentialism]], she proposes that it may be possible to notice intentional ways in which Schubert composed in order to express his "difference" as a part of himself at a time when "the self" was becoming prominent in the arts. Schubert's music and often the man himself and the [[subjectivity]] he presented have been criticized as effeminate, especially in comparison to [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], the model and aggressive master of the sonata form (Sir [[George Grove]], after [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]: "compared with Beethoven, Schubert is as a woman to a man"; [[Carl Dahlhaus]]: "weak" and "involuntary").<ref>Quoted in McClary (1994), p. 214{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2020}}</ref> However, McClary notes: "what is at issue is not Schubert's deviance from a [[Heterosexuality|"straight"]] norm, but rather his particular constructions of subjectivity, especially as they contrast with many of those posed by his peers."<ref>McClary (1994) p. 214{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2020}}</ref>
Some of the ideas about composition as subjective narrative proposed in "Constructions" were developed by McClary in her 1997 article, "The Impromptu that trod on a loaf", which applies this analysis to Schubert's ''Impromptu'' Op. 90, Number 2.<ref>Originally published in the journal ''Narrative'', 5 (1), January 1997 reprinted in {{harvp|Bal
==Criticism==
In the January 1987 issue of ''Minnesota Composers Forum Newsletter'', McClary wrote of [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]]:
<blockquote>
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'[...] [T]he point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of music. The problem Beethoven has constructed for this movement is that it seems to begin before the subject of the symphony has managed to achieve its identity. (128)</blockquote>
She goes on to conclude that "The Ninth Symphony is probably our most compelling articulation in music of the contradictory impulses that have organized [[Patriarchy|patriarchal culture]] since the Enlightenment" (129). The critiques of McClary discussed below refer primarily to the original version of the passage. Several commentators have objected to McClary's characterizations, including [[Robert Anton Wilson]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Robert Anton |title=Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults and Cover-ups |last2=Hill |first2=Miriam Joan |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1998 |isbn=006273417-2 |location=New York |pages=64}}</ref> [[Elaine Barkin]],<ref>"either/other", ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'', vol. 30/2 (1992) pp. 206–233, [p. 219]</ref><ref>"A Response to Elaine Barkin", ''[[Perspectives of New Music]],'' vol. 30/2 (1992) pp. 234-38</ref> and [[Henry Kingsbury]].<ref>[http://www.henrykingsbury.net/aaaa.htm ''Sexual Politics, The New Musicology, and the Real World''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110321041428/http://www.henrykingsbury.net/aaaa.htm|date=2011-03-21}}</ref>
Music theorist Pieter van den Toorn has complained that McClary's polemics negate the asocial autonomy of [[absolute music]]; he is concerned with formal analysis in the tradition of [[Schenkerian analysis|Schenker]].. Van den Toorn complains, for example, that "Fanned by an aversion for male sexuality, which it depicts as something brutal and contemptible, irrelevancies are being read into the music."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Van den Toorn |first1=Pieter C. |title=Politics, Feminism, and Contemporary Music Theory |journal=[[The Journal of Musicology]] |date=1991 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=275–299 [293] |doi=10.2307/763704 |jstor=763704}}</ref> Van den Toorn's complaint was rebutted by musicologist Ruth Solie.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Solie |first1=Ruth A. |title=What Do Feminists Want? A Reply to Pieter van den Toorn |journal=Journal of Musicology |date=1991 |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=399–410 |doi=10.2307/763868 |jstor=763868}}</ref> Van den Toorn responded with a book on these issues.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Van den Toorn |first1=Pieter C. |title=Music, Politics and the Academy |date=1995 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0-520-20115-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=McCreless |first1=Patrick |title=''Music, Politics, and the Academy''. By Peter C. van den Toorn |journal=Notes |department=Book Reviews |date=1997 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=753–756 |doi=10.2307/899715|jstor=899715 }}</ref> Musicologist Paula Higgins, in another critique of McClary's work, has observed that "one wonders ... if [McClary] has not strategically co-opted feminism as an excuse for guerrilla attacks on the field."<ref name=WiM>"Women in Music, Feminist Criticism, and Guerrilla Musicology", ''[[19th-Century Music]]'', vol. 17/2 (1993) pp. 174–192 [p. 178]{{author needed|date=January 2024|reason=Higgins?}}</ref> Higgins complains of McClary's "truculent verbal assaults on musicological straw men",<ref name=WiM />{{rp|176}} and observes that "For all the hip culture critique imported from other fields, McClary has left the cobwebs of patriarchal musicological thought largely intact."<ref name=WiM />{{rp|178}} Higgins is also critical of McClary's citation practice as it concerns other scholars in the area of feminist musical criticism.
The pianist and critic [[Charles Rosen]] has also commented on the famous passage. He avoids taking offense on any of the grounds mentioned above, and is willing to admit sexual metaphors to musical analysis. Rosen's disagreement is simply with McClary's assessment of the music:
:We have first her characterization of the moment of recapitulation in the first movement of
:The phrase about the murderous rage of the rapist has since been withdrawn [as noted above], which indicates that McClary realized it posed a problem, but it has the great merit of recognizing that something extraordinary is taking place here, and McClary's metaphor of sexual violence is not a bad way to describe it. The difficulty is that all metaphors oversimplify, like those entertaining little stories that music critics in the nineteenth century used to invent about works of music for an audience whose musical literacy was not too well developed. I do not, myself, find the cadence frustrated or dammed up in any constricting sense, but only given a slightly deviant movement which briefly postpones total fulfillment.
:To continue the sexual imagery, I cannot think that the rapist incapable of attaining release is an adequate analogue, but I hear the passage as if Beethoven had found a way of making an [[orgasm]] last for sixteen bars. What causes the passage to be so shocking, indeed, is the power of sustaining over such a long phrase what we expect as a brief explosion. To McClary's credit, it should be said that some kind of metaphorical description is called for, and even necessary, but I should like to suggest that none will be satisfactory or definitive.
McClary also notes that she "can say something nice about Beethoven",<ref>McClary, 1991, p. 119{{incomplete short citation|date=August 2020}}</ref> saying of his [[String Quartet No. 15 (Beethoven)|String Quartet, Op. 132]], "Few pieces offer so as vivid an image of shattered subjectivity the opening of Op. 132."<ref>McClary, 2000, p. 119 {{Incomplete short citation|date=September 2016|reason=2000? Which title?}}</ref>
Writing over thirty years after its publication, McClary observed:
<blockquote>People often ask me if I regret having written this essay. I have lived with the consequences for over thirty years, and no matter how much I publish on modal theory or [[Kaija Saariaho]], I will always be
== Personal life ==
McClary is married to
==Selected bibliography==
*{{cite book |last=McClary |first=Susan |chapter=The Blasphemy of Talking Politics during Bach Year |title=
*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= Terminal Prestige: The Case of Avant-Garde Music Composition|journal=Cultural Critique|volume=12|year=1989|issue=12|pages=
*{{cite book|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= Georges Bizet: Carmen| location=Cambridge,
*{{cite book|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, & Sexuality|location=Minneapolis|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2002|edition=2nd|isbn= 9780816641895|ref=none}}
*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|
*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title=
*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title=
*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, California|publisher=University of California|date=2012|isbn= 9780520247345|ref=none}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
===Sources===
*{{cite book|editor-last=Bal|editor-first=Mieke|title=
*{{cite news|last=
*{{cite
*{{cite news|last=Horowitz|first=Joseph|title=
*{{cite book|last=Kramer|first=Lawrence|
*{{
*{{cite book|last=
*{{cite book|last=Peraino|first=Judith Ann|title=
▲*{{citation| last=McClary|first=Susan|title= Lives in Musicology: A Life in Musicology—Stradella and Me|journal= Acta Musicologica|volume=91|number=1|date=2019|pages=5-20|url= https://muse.jhu.edu/article/727281/pdf}}
*{{cite book|last=
*{{cite news|last=Ross|first=Alex|
*{{cite book|last=Miller|first=Leta E.|last2=Lieberman|first2=Frederic|title= Lou Harrison: Composing a World|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1998|isbn=0-19-511022-6}}▼
*{{cite news|last=
▲*{{cite book|last=Peraino|first=Judith Ann|title= Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig|location=Berkeley|publisher= University of California Press|date=2006|isbn=0-520-21587-7|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=c7hjOUzqu7EC&pg=PA256&dq=McClary,+Susan+Constructions+of+Subjectivity+in+Schubert%27s+Music&lr }}
*{{cite news|last=Rothstein|first=Edward|title=Was Schubert Gay? If He Was, So What? Debate Turns Testy|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=August 6, 1995|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1730F937A35751C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}
*{{
▲*{{cite news|last=Ross|first=Alex|title= The Gay Connection in Music and in a Festival|newspaper=The New York Times|date=June 27, 1994|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E1DC173CF934A15755C0A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print}}
*{{cite news|last=
*{{cite news|last=
*{{citation|editor-last=Sleeman|editor-first=Elizabeth|contribution=McClary, Susan K(aye)|title= International Who's Who of Authors and Writers|publisher=Routledge|year=2003|page=348|isbn=1-85743-179-0}}▼
==Further reading==
*{{citation|last=Solomon|first=Maynard|title= Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini|journal=19th-Century Music|date=1989|volume=12|number=3|pages=193-206}}▼
▲*{{cite book|
▲*{{citation|last=Tellenbach|first=Marie Elisabeth|title= Franz Schubert and Benvenuto Cellini: One Man's Meat|journal=The Musical Times|volume=141|number=1870|year=2000|pages=50-52}}
▲*{{
▲*{{cite news|last=Tommasini|first=Anthony|title='Outing' Some 'In' Composers|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 6, 1995|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DA1639F935A3575BC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}
▲*{{
▲*{{cite news|last=Tommasini|first=Anthony|title= What's So Gay About American Music?|newspaper=The New York Times|date= October 24, 2004|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DA1639F935A3575BC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}
==External links==
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* UCLA Department of Musicology, [https://web.archive.org/web/20100707175444/http://www.musicology.ucla.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105%3Asusan-mcclary-bio&catid=6&Itemid=225 Biography of Susan McClary]
* Susan McClary, [http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.10.16.1/mto.10.16.1.mcclary.html "In Praise of Contingency: The Powers and Limits of Theory"], Keynote Address, ''Society for Music Theory'' 2009 Annual Meeting, Montréal, Canada
* Lawrence Kramer with reply by [[Charles Rosen]], [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2143 "Music à La Mode"], ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', Volume 41, Number 15, September 22, 1994
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgyJkUnG9bg ''La Susanna'', opera by Alessandro Stradella (part 1) as performed by the College of Music, Case Western Reserve University, production directed by Susan McClary (2018)]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:McClary, Susan}}
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[[Category:20th-century American women writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]
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[[Category:Writers from St. Louis]]
[[Category:Southern Illinois University alumni]]
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