Susan McClary: Difference between revisions

{{Undue weight|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox writer

| birth_place = [[St. Louis]], Missouri]], U.S.

'''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 the "[[Newnew Musicologymusicology]]". Noted for her work combining musicology with [[feminist]] [[music criticism]], McClary is Professorprofessor of Musicologymusicology at [[Case Western Reserve University]].

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]] (1977–911977–1991), [[McGill University]] (1991–941991–1994), [[University of California, Berkeley]] (1993), and [[University of California, Los Angeles]] (1994-20111994–2011), before becoming a Professor of Musicology at Case Western Reserve University. She has also held a five-year professorship at the [[University of Oslo]] (2007–122007–2012).

{{BLP sources section|date=August 2020}}One of her best known works is ''Feminine Endings'' (1991). ("Feminine ending" is a musical term once commonly used to denote a weak phrase ending or [[cadence (music)|cadence]].) The work covers musical constructions of gender and sexuality, gendered aspects of traditional music theory, gendered sexuality in musical narrative, music as a gendered discourse, and discursive strategies of women musicians.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sayrs|first=Elizabeth|date=1993|title=Deconstructing McClary: Narrative, Feminine Sexuality, and Feminism in Susan McClary's Feminine Endings|journal=College Music Symposium|volume=33/34|pages=41–55|jstor=40374248|issn=0069-5696}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/feminine-endings|title=''Feminine Endings''|website=University of Minnesota Press|access-date=2020-04-03|postscript=,}}, citing a review from ''[[The Village Voice]]''.</ref>

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 the allegedly the secondary, "feminine" key (or second subject group), represents the other, a territory to be explored and conquered, assimilated into the self and stated in the tonic home key.{{Dubious|date=August 2020}}

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 supposedly objective musicologists. But McClary does not ignore the "purely musical" in favor of cultural issues, incorporating it into her analysis. She examines the creation of meanings and identities, some oppressive and hegemonic, some affirmative and resistant, in music through the referencing of musical conventions in the [[blues]], [[Antonio Vivaldi|Vivaldi]], [[Prince (musician)|Prince]], [[Philip Glass]], and others.{{Dubious|date=August 2020}}

While seen by some as extremely radical, her work is influenced by musicologists such as [[Edward Cone|Edward T. Cone]], gender theorists and cultural critics such as [[Teresa de Lauretis]], and others who, like McClary, fall in between, such as [[Theodor Adorno]]. McClary herself admits that her analyses, though intended to [[Deconstruction|deconstruct]], engage in [[essentialism]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://symposium.music.org/index.php/33-34/item/2098-deconstructing-mcclary-narrative-feminine-sexuality-and-feminism-in-susan-mcclarys-feminine-endings|title=Deconstructing McClary: Narrative, Feminine Sexuality, and Feminism in Susan McClary's Feminine Endings – College Music Symposium|last=Sayrs|first=Elizabeth|website=symposium.music.org|language=en-gb|access-date=2020-04-03}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Taruskin|first=Richard|authorlink=Richard Taruskin|year=2009|title=Material Gains: Assessing Susan MCclary|jstor=40539033|journal=[[Music & Letters]]|volume=90|issue=3|pages=453–467|doi=10.1093/ml/gcp049|s2cid=191466798|issn=0027-4224}}</ref>

{{BLP sources section|date=August 2020}}"Constructions of Subjectivity in [[Franz Schubert]]'s Music" first appeared as a paper delivered at the [[American Musicological Society]] in 1990 and then in a revised version as a symposium presentation during the 1992 Schubertiade Festival in New York City. At the time McClary was influenced by [[Maynard Solomon]]'s allegations of [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]]'s [[homosexuality]]claim in his 1989 paper "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of [[Benvenuto Cellini.]]" that [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]] was [[homosexuality|homosexual]]. McClary's paper explored the relevance of Solomon's research to what she termed the uninhibited, "hedonistic" luxuriance of Schubert's ''[[Symphony No. 8 (Schubert)|"Unfinished" Symphony]].'' The symposium paper elicited in some mild controversy.<ref>See, for example {{harvp|Horowitz (January 19, |1992)}}; {{harvp|Rothstein (February 16, |1992)}}; {{harvp|Holland (February 17, |1992)}}</ref> Following evidence that Solomon's conclusions may have been flawed<ref>Summarized in {{harvp|Tellenbach (|2000)}}</ref> and largely based on his own psychoanalytic reading of a dream narrative Schubert set down in 1822,<ref>{{sfnp|Horowitz (January 19, |1992)</ref>}} McClary revised the paper again. Its definitive version was printed in the 1994 edition of the book ''[[Queering the Pitch|Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology]]'' edited by [[Philip Brett]], Elizabeth Wood, and Gary Thomas.

<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 (|2004)}}</ref> "Constructions of Subjectivity in Franz Schubert's Music" and the ideas in it continue to be discussed, sometimes critically.<ref>See for example, {{harvp|Ross (June 27, |1994)}}; {{harvp|Tommasini (August 6, |1995)}}; {{harvp|Rothstein (August 6, |1995)}}; {{harvp|Tellenbach |2000}}; Hatton ({{harvp|Hatten|2004)}}</ref> However, the article influenced a number of [[Queer theory|queer theorists]],<ref>{{harvp|Tommasini (October 24, |2004)}}; {{harvp|Peraino (|2006) |p. =256}}</ref> and in 2003 was described by the musicologist, [[Lawrence Kramer (musicologist)|Lawrence Kramer]], as still an important paper in the field.<ref>{{sfnp|Kramer (|2003) |p. =99.</ref>}} The paper, and the reactions to it are also discussed in Mark Lindsey Mitchell's ''Virtuosi: A Defense and a (sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists''.<ref>Mitchel ({{sfnp|Mitchell|2000) |pp. 113-114</ref>=113–114}}

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>

:We have first her characterization of the moment of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven’sBeethoven's Ninth Symphony:

: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.<ref>{{sfnp|Rosen, |2000, |loc=Chapter 15</ref>}}

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>

<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 identifedidentified with this sentence, nearly always taken out of context. I hasten to mention that I have taught a course on Beethoven quartets every other year since 1980; unless a student has googled me and asked about the controversy, no one in my classes would have any inkling of my presumed hatred of this composer. But no, ''je ne regrette rien''. I still stand by my argument and even my imagery after all these years.<ref>{{sfnp|McClary, |2019, |p. =16.</ref>}}</blockquote>

McClary is married to the musicologist [[Robert Walser (musicologist)|Robert Walser]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Susan McClary – Department of Music|url=https://music.case.edu/faculty/susan-mcclary/|access-date=2020-04-03|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Susan McClary – MacArthur Foundation|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/519/|access-date=2020-04-03|website=www.macfound.org}}</ref>

*{{cite book |last=McClary |first=Susan |chapter=The Blasphemy of Talking Politics during Bach Year |title= Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception |editor-last=Leppert |editor-first=Richard |editor-last2=McClary |editor-first2=Susan |location=Cambridge, MAMassachusetts |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1987 |pages=13-6213–62 |isbn=0521327806 |ref=none}}

*{{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=57-8157–81|doi=10.2307/1354322|jstor=1354322|ref=none}}

*{{cite book|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= Georges Bizet: Carmen| location=Cambridge, MAMassachusetts|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1992|isbn= 9780521398978|ref=none}}

*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|titleauthor-mask=1|chapter= ConventionalConstructions Wisdom:of TheSubjectivity Contentin ofFranz MusicalSchubert's FormMusic|serieseditor-last=ErnestBrett|editor-first=Philip|editor-last2=Wood|editor-first2=Elizabeth|editor-last3=Thomas|editor-first3=Gary|title= Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and BlochLesbian LecturesMusicology|location=Berkeley,New CAYork|publisher=University of CaliforniaRoutledge|date=20002006|isbn=0-520415-2320897884-9X|ref=none}}

*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= ModalConventional SubjectivitiesWisdom: Self-FashioningThe inContent theof ItalianMusical Form|series=Ernest MadrigalBloch Lectures|location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, CACalifornia|publisher=University of California|date=20042000|isbn= 97805202349320-520-23208-9|ref=none}}

*{{citation|last=McClary|first=Susan|author-mask=1|title= DesireModal andSubjectivities: PleasureSelf-Fashioning in Seventeenth-Centurythe MusicItalian Madrigal |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, CACalifornia|publisher=University of California|date=20122004|isbn= 97805202473459780520234932|ref=none}}

===Sources===

*{{cite book|editor-last=Bal|editor-first=Mieke|title= Narrative Theory: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies|location=London|publisher=Taylor & Francis|date=2004|isbn=0-415-31661-8|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3DZnQwNrBWwC&pg=PR5&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA269,M1}}

*{{cite newsbook|last=HollandHatten|first=BernardRobert S.|title=Interpreting Dr.Musical FreudGestures, CanTopics, Teaand ReallyTropes: JustMozart, BeBeethoven, Tea?Schubert|newspaperlocation=TheBloomington, New York TimesIndiana|locationpublisher=NewIndiana University YorkPress|date=February 17, 19922004|isbn=0-253-34459-X|url= https://querybooks.nytimesgoogle.com/gst/fullpage.htmlbooks?res=9E0CE1DC133CF934A25751C0A964958260&sec=&sponid=MfVZQTfYSbMC&pagewantedpg=allPA267}}

*{{cite news|last=Horowitz|first=Joseph|title= Schubert: Eternally Feminine?|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=January 19, 1992|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1DE1530F93AA25752C0A964958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print}}

*{{cite book|last=Kramer|first=Lawrence|titleauthorlink=Lawrence Kramer (musicologist)|title=Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song|location=Cambridge, MAMassachusetts|publisher=Cambridge University Press|dateyear=2003|series=Cambridge studies in music theory and analysis|volume=13|isbn=0-521-54216-2|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=J-kKUHKTidUC&pg=PA99&dq=McClary,+Susan+Constructions+of+Subjectivity+in+Schubert%27s+Music&lr=#PPA99,M1}}

*{{cite book|last=McClaryMitchell|first=SusanMark Lindsey|title=Virtuosi: FeminineA Endings:Defense Music,and Gender,a &(sometimes Sexuality'Erotic) Celebration of Great Pianists|location=MinneapolisBloomington, Indiana|publisher=Indiana University of Minnesota Press|year=20022000|editionisbn=2nd0-253-33757-7|isbnurl= 9780816641895https://books.google.com/books?id=K2lA-nUvmNIC&pg=PA113}}

*{{cite book|last=MitchellRosen|first=MarkCharles|authorlink=Charles LindseyRosen|title='Virtuosi Critical Entertainments: AMusic DefenseOld and a (sometimes Erotic) Celebration of Great PianistsNew|url=https://archive.org/details/criticalentertai00char|url-access=registration|location=BloomingtonCambridge, INMA|publisher= IndianaHarvard University Press|date=2000|isbn=0-253674-3375717730-7|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=K2lA-nUvmNIC&pg=PA113&dq=McClary,+Susan+Constructions+of+Subjectivity+in+Schubert%27s+Music&lr=#PPA113,M14}}

*{{cite news|last=RothsteinTommasini|first=EdwardAnthony|authorlink=Anthony Tommasini|title='Outing' And If You PlaySome 'BoleroIn' Backward ...Composers|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=FebruaryAugust 166, 19921995|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DB163AF935A25751C0A964958260990CE2DA1639F935A3575BC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}

*{{cite news|last=RothsteinTommasini|first=EdwardAnthony|title=What's Was SchubertSo Gay? IfAbout HeAmerican Was, So WhatMusic? Debate Turns Testy |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=AugustOctober 624, 19952004|url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE7DC1730F937A35751C0A964958260990CE2DA1639F935A3575BC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all}}

* 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

[[Category:American musicologistsgender studies academics]]