Category Archives: Class2

2/13 The rise of the virtuosa / Male & female sopranos

The rise of the virtuosa: women on stage – Male & female sopranos

Reading: “Fancying Tenducci” from Helen Berry, The Castrato and His Wife, pp. 67-89.

Optional reading: “The Pig Man Arrives in Monte San Savino,” from Helen Berry, The Castrato and His Wife

Listening: Luzzasco Luzzaschi, O dolcezz’ amarissime d’amore”
Claudio Monteverdi [?], “Pur ti miro” from L’incoronazione di Poppea
Georg Frederich Handel, “Caro, bella,” from Giulio Cesare

Tasks:

1/30 Gender in Medieval Song Lyrics

Gender in Medieval song lyrics – Trobairitz, jougleresses, and other secular musicians

Reading: Packet of medieval song lyrics
Sarah McNamer, “Lyrics and Romances,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, pp. 195–201.

Optional Reading: Anne Klinck, “Poetic Markers of Gender in Medieval ‘Woman’s Song’: Was Anonymous a Woman?”

Listening: Comtessa de Dia, “A Chantar”
“Bele Yolanz en ses chambres seoit”

Tasks:

1/16 Historiography

Historiography: Why aren’t women musicians better represented in the history books?

Reading: Excerpt from Sherrie Tucker, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t in the History Books,” from Swing Shift: All-Girl Bands of the 1940s (pp. 1-7 & 27-29)

Listening: International Sweethearts of Rhythm, “Swing Shift”
Ada Leonard’s All-American Girls, ca. 1943

Tasks:

Answers to the “woman composer question” [research]

Critics like George Upton who thought that women could not write great music were faced by a number of counterexamples: women who could and did compose well. Find at least three examples of women composers active at any time before Upton wrote his essay in 1880.

In the “Composers” thread on Blackboard, give a brief bio of each composer and include links to reliable sources about her life and work (books, scholarly articles, etc.) and, if possible, recordings of her music.

Due: