Music and Sexuality in Britten

Selected Essays

Philip Brett author George E Haggerty editor Susan McClary editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of California Press

Published:3rd Nov '06

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Music and Sexuality in Britten cover

Philip Brett's groundbreaking writing on Benjamin Britten altered the course of music scholarship in the later twentieth century. This volume is the first to gather in one collection Brett's searching and provocative work on the great British composer. Some of the early essays opened the door to gay studies in music, while the discussions that Brett initiated reinvigorated the study of Britten's work and inspired a generation of scholars to imagine 'the new musicology'. Addressing urgent questions of how an artist's sexual, cultural, and personal identity feeds into specific musical texts, Brett examines most of Britten's operas as well as his role in the British cultural establishment of the mid-twentieth century. With some of the essays appearing here for the first time, this volume develops a complex understanding of Britten's musical achievement and highlights the many ways that Brett expanded the borders of his field.

"Philip Brett changed the way we hear Britten's music, compelling us to listen anew for its sounding-out of political, sexual, and cultural meanings. Brett's richly detailed historical awareness, his supple and subtle theoretical mind, his sheer musicianship - these are qualities clear on every page of this book." - Philip Rupprecht, author of Britten's Musical Language"

ISBN: 9780520246102

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm

Weight: 408g

295 pages