A Feminist Analysis of

Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano

A thesis submitted to

The Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts

in the Performance Studies Division

of the College-Conservatory of Music

2006

by

Margaret Jean Grant

B.M, University of Georgia, 1977

M.F.A., University of Georgia, 1979
M.M., Florida State University, 1986
 ABSTRACT

Francis Poulenc’s final work, his Sonata for oboe and piano, is one of the

standard works in the oboe repertoire. However, this beloved sonata presents many

puzzles and challenges for the thoughtful performer. This thesis came about because of

those puzzles and challenges.

One of the most exciting and innovative directions in music scholarship has come

from the feminist movement and its many influences on the way scholars look at, talk

about, listen to, and perform music. Feminist music theory steps outside the bounds of

traditional techniques, seeking ways to offer new kinds of music analysis that may have

more value to a wider audience. This thesis begins with an overview of feminist waves,

terms, and philosophies before moving to how feminism has influenced music

scholarship. The second chapter explores feminist music theory, citing examples of

analysis from important feminist music scholars and drawing conclusions about the

nature and work of feminist music theory. The third chapter presents an analysis of

Poulenc’s oboe sonata, drawing primarily upon feminist techniques but not neglecting

traditional theoretical systems when appropriate. The analysis begins by discussing

Poulenc’s contextuality, personal life, and musical style, and then proceeds to deconstruct

the music. In the process, Poulenc’s affinity for creating art through music, and for

creating dramatic musical narrative in instrumental music, are brought to the forefront.

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Copyright © 2006 by Margaret Jean Grant
All rights reserved

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To Karin Pendle

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 CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

CHAPTER

1. FEMINIST CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

INFLUENCING MUSICAL THOUGHT
Overview: Three Waves of Feminism
Feminism and Music Scholarship

2. WHAT IS FEMINIST MUSIC THEORY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Definitions and Examples
Feminist Music Theory and the Sonata
Feminist Music Theory Summarized

3. FRANCIS POULENC AND HIS OBOE SONATA:

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
The Context
A Feminist Analysis
Conclusions and Results of Feminist Analysis

CONCLUSION: FINDING JOUISSANCE

AS A WOMAN PERFORMER/THEORIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The fact that this thesis finally reached embodiment is a direct tribute to the

people in my life who encouraged and believed in me along the way. Chief among them

is my advisor and mentor, Dr. Karin Pendle, without whose guidance I would not even

have known that feminist music theory exists. Dr. Pendle’s wealth of knowledge, tireless

commitment to music scholarship, and personal commitment to her students inspire all

who are fortunate enough to work with her. Her wit and wisdom in telling me that I

“could have a life after my thesis” provided the correction I needed when my attention

often wandered to other matters. Her example of diligence and perseverance continually

humbles and amazes me.

I am profoundly grateful for the education I have received at the University of

Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. Among my most revered professors is Dr.

Mark Ostoich, my oboe teacher, whose phenomenal musicianship and teaching ability

challenged and inspired me, and whose friendship I will covet for the rest of my life.

Family and friends have gently nudged (and sometimes pushed) me to finish this

project, and for that I am grateful. Chief among them are my brother Henry, my parents,

and my beloved husband, Steve, who provided both emotional and technical assistance.

My church family also encouraged me to stay the course. I am thankful to them, and to

the One who gave me life and continues to fill it with the gift of music.

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 INTRODUCTION

When I undertook this project, I was already convinced of the many benefits that

music theory could bring to performers. I also realized that there were many gaps

between the two disciplines. My first attempt to bridge that gap came in my first semester

of doctoral studies in a summer course on music performance and theory taught by Dr.

David Smyth at Louisiana State University. Our primary text, besides the music itself,

was what must now be considered a classic: Edward T. Cone’s book Musical Form and

Musical Performance. 1 “Valid performance depends primarily on the perception and

communication of the rhythmic life of a composition,” Cone writes. “We should look

more closely, then, at the other musical elements and try to uncover the rhythmic form

that they imply.” 2 Dr. Cone’s book challenged me to start thinking “outside the box” of

traditional music theory.

For our final project in Dr. Smyth’s class we were to present lecture-recitals

integrating analysis and performance on a work of our choice (preferably from our own

repertoire). I chose the first movement of Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano.

A staple of the oboe repertoire, this sonata is one of the most performed and recorded

solo works for oboe. It is also one of the most enigmatic and, in some places, difficult to

interpret. I wondered whether music theory could lend any performance insights to these

problematic places.

1
Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York and London: Norton,
1968). This short book grew out of a series of lectures given at Oberlin College in 1967.
2
Ibid., 38, 39.

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 Unfortunately, this first attempt to analyze the first movement–Elégie–did not

really help me understand how to perform or understand it any differently. My analysis,

based primarily on traditional theoretical models, showed that the movement did not

follow typical sonata-allegro procedure. Beyond that, though, I did not find any vital

connections for performers.

Through my ensuing doctoral work at the University of Cincinnati, College-

Conservatory of Music (CCM), I gained a greater understanding of music theory,

performance, and women’s music. My oboe professor, Dr. Mark Ostoich, and I had many

a discussion over why I should (or should not) look to music theory for help in achieving

better performance. He often encouraged me not to be so analytical, commenting that I

needed to get away from that mindset in order to attain freedom of musical expression.

He was right, since I was still approaching music theory using the traditional, masculinist

viewpoint that had been instilled in me through my years of higher education.

My first real breakthrough in finding a connection between performance and

analysis came through an article by Dr. Alexandra Pierce in the journal Intégrale. 3 In the

article Dr. Pierce describes master classes in which she helped the performers solve

problems in their music by identifying and then performing through movement what she

calls “middle ground rhythmic vitality.” One of the performers in her class was an oboist

working on the introduction to the second movement of Saint-Saens’s oboe sonata–a

challenging interpretive place in our repertoire. Dr. Pierce encouraged this student to

consider the underlying harmonic motions of the cascading arpeggiations in this passage.

By listening and moving to the rhythmic harmonic flow, the student was able to time the

3
Alexandra Pierce, “Developing Schenkerian Hearing and Performing” (Intégrale 8, 1994): 51-
123. Dr. Pierce and her husband have published numerous articles and books relating music, music theory,
and movement.

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arpeggiated sequences in a way that brought much more coherence to her performance. I

immediately tried this myself and began to implement these ideas in other pieces I was

preparing, with amazing results. Not only did it help my performances; it was fun. I had

finally found one really concrete way to bridge the theory and performance gap:

movement applied to Schenkerian analysis.

In my last year of course work at CCM I took Dr. Karin Pendle’s class on women

in music. By the end of the term I had realized that I was missing half of the picture. I

rushed to find music for oboe by women composers and began programming that music

whenever I could. When the time came to choose a topic for my thesis, I asked Dr.

Pendle to advise it. After quite a lot of reading and research, and with her expert

guidance, I decided to approach the topic of feminist music theory. And, since I was still

mystified by Poulenc’s oboe sonata, I decided to explore what feminist theory might have

to offer in working out the interpretive (and therefore, performance) problems that still

bothered me. Since feminism was still relatively new to me (and, I suspected, to many

others who might be interested in an analysis of this sonata), I decided that I must first lay

a foundation for the analysis. This proved to be a critical decision, since the more I

learned about feminism, the more I began to discover that helped me understand

Poulenc’s oboe sonata.

Therefore, this thesis begins with an overview of feminist waves, terms, and

philosophies before moving to how feminism has influenced music scholarship. In the

second chapter I explore feminist music theory, citing examples of analysis from

important feminist music scholars and drawing conclusions about the nature and work of

feminist music theory. Finally, I analyze Poulenc’s oboe sonata, drawing primarily upon

9
feminist techniques but not neglecting traditional theoretical systems when appropriate.

The result has exceeded my own expectations. It is my hope that this thesis will launch

further feminist investigations in this other music.

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 CHAPTER ONE

FEMINIST CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

INFLUENCING MUSICAL THOUGHT

Although feminism began influencing music scholarship later than it did many

other fields–such as history, literature, psychology, and art–it has now made major

inroads, first in musicology and later in music theory. Feminism spans such a vast depth

and scope of subjects that some writers and scholars prefer its plural form: feminisms.

The plural suggests the multiple meanings and myriad viewpoints feminism explores: all

of human history and human experience, from socio-cultural norms to psychology,

spirituality, and biology. Nevertheless, certain overarching commonalities provide a basic

framework for any specialized study within this broad field. The faces and voices of

feminisms underscore the fact that women’s voices in the past have not been heard.

Effecting change requires new ways of thinking and speaking that raise consciousness

and promote and value women as individuals and their stories as fully half of the picture.

The work is multi-faceted, many-layered, and incomplete. This thesis will explore the

intersection of music theory and feminist scholarship, as exemplified in an analysis of

Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano.

What is feminism? Feminist author and educator Imelda Whelehan offers a good

basic definition: “All feminist positions are founded upon the belief that women suffer

from systematic social injustices because of their sex; therefore, ‘any feminist is, at the

very minimum, committed to some form of reappraisal of the position of women in

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society.’” 4 In her book What is Feminism? Chris Beasley lists some of the dualisms that

characterize Western thinking and help promulgate social inequities: MAN/woman,

REASON/emotion, LOGIC/intuition, ACTIVE/passive, AUTONOMY/interconnection

and nurture, ADAM/Eve. 5 Deconstructing and challenging these binaries reverses the

hierarchies they suggest, exposes the inequities in traditional etymology, and reconfigures

power and equality.

Most feminists agree that, historically, men have dominated Western culture and

devalued women’s viewpoints and contributions. Feminists work to reveal and rectify

social, economic, political, and educational injustices in order to unravel male-dominated

perspectives handed down through educational systems and canons, to discover hidden or

suppressed contributions of women through the ages, and to encourage a more inclusive

social consciousness. Ultimately, feminists work to effect positive change not only in

theory but also in the reality of women’s everyday lives.

Feminist musicologist Ruth Solie, author of the article “Feminism” in The New

Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, writes:

In musicology, music theory and ethnomusicology, the commitment to the well-

being of women and to the importance of their creative participation in culture and
history has given rise to a body of scholarship dedicated to the understanding of
women’s roles, experiences and contributions as well as the various ways in which
gender as social construct has defined those roles in different cultural settings.
Feminist scholarship has also been concerned with…a critical approach in which
the understanding of gender and gender ideology is brought to bear upon the entire
musical realm. Specifically, feminist musical scholarship sees music as both
product and promulgator of a gendered social order. 6

4
Modern Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to ‘Post-Feminism’ (Edinburgh: University
Press, 1995), 25. Whelehan quotes J. Evans from Feminism and Political Theory (London: Sage, 1986).
5
Chris Beasley, What is feminism? An introduction to feminist theory (London, England, and
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1999), 9. The list includes many other provocative pairs.
6
Ruth Solie, “Feminism,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., v. 9, ed.
Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001), 664.

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Solie terms this double-edged problem a “difference dilemma.” In her introduction to

Musicology and Difference she writes:

Binary views of sexual difference, whether they address gender or sexual

orientation, may also have the effect of eliding both cultural and historical
differences by taking into consideration only single aspects of people in isolation
from the other characteristics that make up the specificity of their experience. 7

Nevertheless, focusing primarily on feminist issues in scholarly research has

yielded important and historically significant insights in musicological and theoretical

research. This introduction will provide an overview of some central feminist issues that

seem most relevant to music scholarship and particularly to music analysis and

performance.

Overview: Three Waves of Feminism

Feminist historians distinguish three waves of feminist activism in the United

States and Great Britain, the first two separated from each other by over half a century.

The first wave, instituted by British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-99) in her

landmark volume A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 8 worked toward reform in basic

human rights and roles. Wollstonecraft “attacked the educational restrictions that kept

women in a state of ‘ignorance and slavish dependence.’” 9 At the core of her efforts was

the desire to grant women full personhood, with all of the rights and status accorded to

7
Ruth Solie, “Introduction: ‘On Difference,’” in Musicology and Difference: Gender and
Sexuality in Music Scholarship (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 17.
8
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (Boston:
Peter Edes, 1792); (New York: Bartleby.com, 1999). www.bartleby.com/144/ (accessed April 21, 2006).
9
Paula Bartley, Votes for Women, 1860-1928 (London: Hodder and Stoughton Educational, 1998,
available at amazon.co.uk). Condensed at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wwollstonecraft.htm
(accessed April 21, 2006).

13
men. This included working toward gender justice–changing ancient ideas that associated

emotion with women and reason with men.

Wollstonecraft’s nineteenth-century successors expanded these concepts to

include equal civil liberties, social voice, and economic opportunities for women. In sum,

First Wave feminists placed highest value on reason, education, and scientific rationality;

refused to accept unquestioningly the traditional sources of authority sometimes called

“received wisdom”; and advocated civil liberty and humanitarian reform for all people. In

the United States, First Wave feminism culminated in 1920 with the passage of the

nineteenth amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

Fifty years later a Second Wave of feminism began to address ideas, assumptions,

and associations that have often caused women to be assigned inferior roles in society.

The second feminist wave, also called “women’s liberation,” began in the United States

and Great Britain with the publication in 1963 of Betty Friedan’s first book, The

Feminine Mystique, in which she advocated women’s full-time employment outside the

home, regardless of individual family situations.10 “The personal is political” became the

campaign slogan for consciousness-raising groups in the United States seeking to

challenge traditional political concepts, dismantle patriarchal systems, change women’s

images as sexual objects, and promote women’s rights to education and careers: “The

focus this time was on equal pay for equal work, equal career and educational

10
For a discussion of Friedan’s contributions to Second Wave feminism see Rosemarie Tong,
Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder and San Francisco: Westview Press, 1989), 22f.

14
opportunities. The movement was also concerned with issues such as family planning,

abortion, child-care, rape in marriage, domestic violence, social welfare and divorce.” 11

Having grown up in a culture where feminist consciousness has been raised (if not

completely changed), Third Wave feminists of the 1980s and 90s are concerned with

queer theory, multiculturalism, and differences among individual people. French

feminism, especially its emphasis on the female body, along with ideologies such as

deconstruction, postmodernism, and post-structuralism, have had profound impacts on

these latest feminists.

Feminism in France

French feminism occupies a separate, if related, study, because of its emphasis on

the intellectual, as opposed to the socially-based movements in the United States and

Great Britain. French feminism focuses on psychology and language as vehicles for

understanding and change, and addresses the body and its relation to a person’s social

and sexual identity. The French line of feminism “went to Postmodern/Post-structuralism

(Butler) through Derrida and Foucault.” 12 The French feminists listed below represent a

sampling of the different ideas that have come out of that culture. Although the

descriptions here are brief, the concepts themselves are complex and varied. The category

French feminism should be used only as a means of differentiating the French tendency

11
Helen Jones, In her own name: a history of women in South Australia, revised edition
(Adelaide, South Australia: Wakefield Press, 1994). Condensed by the author for the web site of State
Library of South Australia, North Terrace Adelaide, South Australia, 2001.
http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/women_and_politics/suffr7.htm (accessed April 21, 2006).
12
Beasley, 48.

15
toward psychological, intellectual focus, as opposed to the primarily social focus of early

feminists in the United States and Great Britain.

Anti-essentialist French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), in her classic

feminist text Le deuxième sexe (1949), 13 laid the foundation for much feminist work of

the 1970s and beyond. Her famous statement, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a

woman,” 14 opened a floodgate of questions concerning biology, sexuality, and social

performativity. Because society equates Woman with motherhood, emotionalism, and

nature, and Man with authority, rationalism, and culture, it assigns Woman an inferior

role. Not only is Woman inferior; she is the abnormal, “negative Other” to Man because

of her biological makeup. Normality, though not always desirable, nevertheless often

determines who gets heard, what gets accepted, and what gets marginalized and

devalued. By insisting that people can choose their identities and roles, rather than

passively accepting the roles handed to them by society, de Beauvoir challenged social

structure as experienced in most western countries.

Jacques Lacan (1901-81), controversial French Freudian psychiatrist and

postmodernist, examined the ways in which language transmits a culture’s interrelated

signs, roles, and rituals, thus playing an early, formative role in shaping a person’s

identity. Most pertinent to feminism is his belief that women are permanent outsiders in

society because of language, where meaning is masculine, constructed, and socially

contexted. Lacan’s descriptive term “Symbolic Order” stems from his studies of

anthropologist Claude Lévi, who proposed that every society is regulated by a series of

13
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed. H. M. Parshley (New York: Vintage Books,
1974).
14
Sarah Gamble, ed., The Routledge Critical Dictionary of Feminism and Postfeminism
(New York: Routledge, 2000).

16
interrelated signs, roles, and rituals. Language becomes the medium through which

children form their self-identities. When a child internalizes the Symbolic Order with its

gender and class roles, 15 the child is able to participate in society. Dr. Mary Klages

writes:

In taking up a position in the Symbolic, you enter through a gender-marked

doorway; the position for girls is different than the position for boys. Boys are
closer to the Phallus than girls… . [T]he Phallus is the idea of the Father, the
patriarchal order of culture, the ultimate idea of culture, the position which rules
everything in the world. 16

Lacan’s ideas have both influenced and infuriated French postmodern feminists, whose

concerns have been raised most eloquently in the writings of Hélène Cixous and Julia

Kristeva.

Cixous (b. 1937), a novelist, explores the possibility that men’s and women’s

writings express their sexuality. Men write in a way that is limited by the rigidly imposed

standards of the Symbolic Order, which defines and enforces culture’s “law of the

fathers.” Women, on the other hand, write in a way that is “open and multiple, varied and

rhythmic, full of pleasures and, perhaps more importantly, of possibilities.” 17 Cixous

writes:

[A woman’s] writing can only keep going, without ever inscribing or discerning
contours. . . . She lets the other language speak–the language of 1,000 tongues
which knows neither enclosure nor death. …Her language does not contain, it
carries; it does not hold back, it makes possible. 18

15
Rosemary Tong, Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder, CO, and San
Francisco: Westview Press), 220.
16
Klages, Mary. Online lecture, University of Colorado at Boulder. Last revision October 8, 2001.
http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/lacan.html (accessed April 19, 2006).
17
Tong, 225.
18
Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” in New French Feminisms, Elaine Marks and
Isabelle de Courtivron, eds., 245-64. (New York: Schocken, 1981), 256. Quoted in Tong, 225.

17
 Bulgarian-born French philosopher and writer Julia Kristeva (b. 1941) believes that

children can choose with which parent they will identify. Rather than automatically

identifying “feminine” with women and “masculine” with men, boys who identify more

with their mothers can write in a “feminine” mode, and vice versa. Kristeva identifies

what she terms “maternal space”: a cyclical, eternal concept of time as opposed to the

linear, sequential time of the Symbolic Order. Writings that emphasize rhythm, sound,

and color, and that permit breaks in syntax and grammar, exhibit femininity and are

unrepressed. 19

Controversial French psychoanalyst and philosopher Luce Irigaray (b. 1930s)

believes that women’s bodies hold the keys to their liberation. Irigaray wants women

somehow to find selfhood in a way that does not depend in any way on language.

Language requires Woman to use masculine concepts and representations, thus

“trap[ping her] in a system or meaning which serves the auto-affection of the (masculine)

subject.” 20 Woman is completely different from Man and must express herself in ways

that do not rely on the language of Man.

Essentialism

Diana Fuss, in her 1989 book Essentially Speaking, identifies and encapsulates

two diametrically opposed philosophies: 1. Essentialism, “a belief in the real, true

essence of things”–the invariable, fixed properties that constitute identity (our natural

19
Tong, 229-231.
20
Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1985), 32. Quoted in Tong, 227.

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essences originating in our biology); and 2. Constructionism, which proposes that our

identity is formed through socialization. 21

In order to emphasize the way social construct affects a person’s identity, some

feminists prefer the term gender–socialized role–to sex–biological configuration. In her

book Gender and the Politics of History, Joan Wallach Scott writes, “Recent feminists

define gender as the social organization of the relationship between the sexes.” 22 Under

this definition, biological makeup may have little or nothing to do with a person’s gender.

Scott also writes, “Gender must be redefined and restructured in conjunction with a

vision of political and social equality.” 23 This entails defining new subject matter,

critically examining the premises and standards of existing scholarly work, and including

gender as a category of analysis. 24 Since historical representations of the past help

construct the meaning of gender for the present, historians must study sexual roles and

symbolism in history in order to discover how these roles have served to maintain or to

change social orders.

In the second chapter of her well-known book What Can She Know? feminist

philosopher Lorraine Code discusses characteristics of male essentialism: empiricism,

rationalism, and objectivity. Code writes that “attributions of essential maleness efface

differences among men and . . . are in fact typical only of an elite group of white men in

21
Diana Fuss, Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature & Difference (New York and London:
Routledge, 1989), 4-5. Fuss believes that thinking in oppositions, even on the subject of essentialism,
ultimately leads back to essentialism.
22
Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999), 2.
23
Ibid., 50.
24
Ibid., 29.

19
specific situations of power, property, and political privilege.” 25 That “emotions . . .

could be integral to the construction of knowledge is hardly to be conceived,” 26 writes

Code. If objective rationality alone constitutes the basis of knowledge, then emotionalism

represents the abnormal, irrelevant Other.

Some Third Wave feminists are seeking to identify the positive aspects of

feminine Otherness. Feminist scientist Celia Roberts explores the range and interaction of

scientific and psychological thought as they relate to essentialism in her article

“Biological Behavior? Hormones, Psychology, and Sex.” 27 Feminists accuse science of

being essentialist, guilty of “biological reductionism.” In reality, Roberts asserts,

scientific studies have considered the full spectrum, from simple biological determinism

to analyses of the interplay between the biological and the social. Biological determinists,

who represent the classic, essentialist extreme, believe that all brain and behavioral

factors derive directly from our sex hormones–human black boxes that determine our

behavioral output. Scientists on the other end of the spectrum believe that, although

hormones cause slightly different behaviors in men and women, society and culture

produce the major differences.

Roberts herself affirms the uniqueness of women’s bodies, focusing “on the co-

construction or ‘interimplication’ of the biological and the social” in order to find a

workable stance termed “strategic essentialism.” She believes that constructivist feminists

do themselves a disfavor by unilaterally rejecting biologism or by talking in terms of

25
Lorraine Code, What Can She Know?: Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge
(Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991), 54.
26
Ibid., 46.
27
National Women’s Studies Association [hereafter, NWSA] Journal 12/3
(November 2000): 1-20.

20
either biological or social, because “neither can be understood in separation from the

other.” 28 These and other anti-essentialist views open the way for feminist analysis of

works not only by women but also by male composers, artists, and writers.

Deconstruction, Postmodernism, Post-Structuralism, and Performativity

A feminist perspective in and of itself leads scholars to ask questions that differ

considerably from those of scholars who limit their analytic methodology to traditional

techniques. Feminist music scholarship draws on critical philosophies outside the field–

such as deconstruction, postmodernism, post-structuralism, and performativity–that

extend the boundaries and give substance to the analysis of music. Musicologist Ruth

Solie writes:

There is no doubt that academic feminism in its present form could not have taken
shape without the advent of postmodernism. . . . Along with poststructuralism and
deconstruction, this cluster of new scholarly approaches now includes aspects of
cultural and postcolonial studies and queer theory. . . . All these modes of analysis
. . . are centrally concerned with social processes that generate meaning, with the
role of differential power relationships in culture, and with modes of representation.
. . . They share the conviction that knowledge and interpretation are situated: that
social identity structures what is known, how that knowledge is used, and how
representations are made and interpreted. 29

Deconstructionist French philosopher and literary critic Jacques Derrida (1930-

2004) challenged the notion of universal, unchanging truths and emphasized the positive

side of Otherness. According to Derrida and other deconstructionists, language, saturated

with complex cultural codes, cannot possibly contain only a single definitive meaning in

a given context. Language must therefore undergo deconstruction, and fixed meanings

28
Ibid., 7.
29
Solie, “Feminism,” New Grove, 665.

21
must be questioned, in order to render language more inclusive of all human experience.

Derrida sought to expose hidden social codes in language and to reveal the many ways

humanity is shaped and defined by these codes. Binary oppositions, for example, in

which words are paired as opposites (with the first given priority status), frequently

reveal discrimination against women and against values associated with women.

Deconstruction arguably has exercised the broadest impact on academic feminist

scholarship, questioning established historical accounts and scientific fact, and

incorporating psychology and critical inquiry. Deconstructionist historian Joan Wallach

Scott challenges feminist scholars to “scrutinize [their] methods of analysis, clarify [their]

operative assumptions, [and] explain how [they] think change occurs. Rather than

searching for single origins, [feminists must] conceive of processes so interconnected that

they cannot be disentangled.” 30 She also writes: “To pursue meaning, we need to deal

with the individual subject as well as social organization and to articulate the nature of

their interrelationships, for both are crucial to understanding how gender works, how

change occurs.” 31 Critical feminists must systematically assess the operations of

male/female difference, expose hierarchies and constructions, refuse to acknowledge the

existence of an ultimate “truth,” and strive for equality that rests on differences.

Sameness is not the goal, but rather acceptance of a “more complicated, historically

variable diversity” in which difference literally becomes the meaning of equality. 32

Historians must challenge existing assumptions, including the assumption that history as

30
Scott, 5.
31
Ibid., 42.
32
Ibid., 174. This concept applies not only to female/male relationships but also to racial, ethnic,
and class considerations.

22
it has been written and taught “faithfully documents lived reality.” This is truly a

deconstructive, feminist stance.

Although difficult to define because it encompasses multiple and complex thought

processes and interpretations, postmodernism nevertheless has profoundly influenced

feminist academic thought. French postmodernist philosopher Jean-François Lyotard

(1924-98) noted that postmodern creativity is not governed by pre-established rules and

cannot be judged according to any given categories. Plurality, eclecticism, and relativism

characterize postmodernist thought processes. Specifically, postmodernism blurs

boundaries (for example, between high art and popular culture), and shows an openness

to technology, anti-elitism, and acceptance of multiple interpretations, including those of

the listener and the reader. Those who address the issue of received wisdom in the arts

find this so-called “death of the author” phenomenon enormously significant. For

feminists, postmodernism offers a forum for examining and commenting on tradition,

including new and varied ideas, and, in the words of cultural arts studies scholar Janet

Wolff, “engag[ing] in the guerilla tactics of undermining closed and hegemonic systems

of thought.” 33

Michel Foucault (1926-84), French philosopher, historian, and post-structuralist,

studied power in social relationships. Foucault rejected "‘grand narratives’ . . . the

universe of appearances, periods, tendencies, sequences and so on . . . in short, the

possibility of finding within history that which is Essential.” 34 From his viewpoint,

33
Janet Wolff, Feminine Sentences (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1990), 87.
34
Andy Blunden, “Post-Structuralism.” http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/works/foucaul1.htm
(accessed April 21, 2006).

23
people do not possess, or not possess, power but rather exercise it in actions and in social

relationships. 35 The concept of meaning and power as shifting, fragmented, and complex

forces rather than as a single centralized force exemplifies post-structuralism. Feminists

find post-structuralism’s psychology of power a particularly potent concept. Women can

choose to evaluate social and interpersonal power relationships and to exercise power on

their own behalf. Since power is multiple and changeable, women can work to shift and

rebalance power relationship and to raise consciousness of power’s ever-present potential

to shape their own realities. From an extreme post-structuralist viewpoint, women (and

men) can also choose their identities, since they have no built-in essence pre-determining

their selfhood. This concept profoundly influenced the idea of gender performativity, as

set forth by United States feminist Judith Butler in the late twentieth century.

One of the best-known and radical feminists of our time, Judith Butler proposes

that a person’s gender is not fixed; rather, it is fluid and changeable. In her 1990 book

Gender Trouble Butler writes, “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of

gender; . . . identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to

be its results.” 36 Professor David Gauntlett summarizes Butler’s theories in Gender

Trouble as follows:

[G]ender is a performance; it's what you do at particular times, rather than a

universal who you are. Butler argues that we all put on a gender performance,
whether traditional or not, anyway, and so it is not a question of whether to do a
gender performance, but what form that performance will take. By choosing to be
different about it, we might work to change gender norms and the binary
understanding of masculinity and femininity. This idea of identity as free-floating,
as not connected to an “essence,” but instead a performance, is one of the key ideas

35
Beasley, 20.
36
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge,
1990), 25.

24
 in queer theory. Seen in this way, our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not
express some authentic inner "core" self but are the dramatic effect (rather than the
cause) of our performances. 37

Butler’s ideas on performativity also stem from de Beauvoir, who wrote that

woman’s social personae were created for her by men. De Beauvoir included in her list of

social personae not only wife and mother, but also prostitute. 38 By identifying and then

negating the idea that women and men are biologically controlled by inherent gendered

essences, de Beauvoir paved the way for women to create their own identities separate

from any that were tied to men’s social agendas for them. Butler takes this idea further by

claiming that, since identity is constructed, it is also subject to change at an individual’s

discretion. A performer of music, then, could potentially choose to become the composer,

or to step into the role created by the composer for a particular piece of music.

Feminism and Music Scholarship

Feminist scholars use these diverse and complex critical philosophies in different

ways; nevertheless, multiple interpretations and interdisciplinary perspectives

characterize most scholarly feminist explorations. The many interrelated and

interdependent thought systems with their individual and combined complexities make

defining a specific feminist music aesthetic difficult. This is especially apparent in

attempts to determine whether or not women compose, write about, perform, and

experience music out of their sexuality. Although identifying a feminist music aesthetic

37
David Gauntlett, 1998. http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm (accessed April 21, 2006).
Gauntlett, Professor of Media and Audiences at the Media School, Bournemouth University, and the Centre
for Excellence in Media Practice in the United Kingdom, studies the ways in which individuals use media
products in the construction of their own narratives of the self, and self-identity.
38
Tong, 210.

25
may risk creating yet another manifestation of essentialism, exploring the possibilities

opens up exciting and vitally important issues relevant to women’s contributions in

music.

Feminists have coined the term malestream to indicate the way in which canonic

histories and theories written by and about men assume that a male viewpoint represents

universal experience and truth. They are rewriting, redefining, and reconstructing

historical and cultural thought and practice in order to repair the “partial and sexualized

character of existing theoretical knowledges.” 39 With the deconstructionists they are

contesting established meanings and rejecting the notion that absolute truth can be

defined by any one person using any one set of words.

Some scholars seek to add histories of women and music by women composers to

existing texts. Others call this approach “add women and stir,” a somewhat derogatory

designation for what they believe to be a flawed process because it begins with pre-

existing, male-defined work. Those who reject “add and stir” choose to critique, reject,

and start over. They are writing “herstory.” A third approach, what feminist Chris

Beasley terms “deconstruct and transform,” works from the idea that traditional thought

reveals feminist needs. Since we are products of our social and intellectual history and

cannot completely escape it, feminists must rework existing accounts in order to reveal a

more complete truth.

39
Beasley, 5.

26
The Interdisciplinary Nature of Music Scholarship

Interdisciplinary research constitutes one of the greatest innovations in feminist

research and one of the most forthright examples of how feminism translates directly into

scholarly music studies. Feminist music scholarship gathers together disciplines that in

the most recent past have been separated from each other, most notably musicology,

music theory, and performance, along with consideration of critical positions gleaned

from the feminist writings of deconstructionists, postmodernists, post-structuralists, and

those drawing on ideas of performativity.

Conservatives in each field prefer to keep the old distinctions in order to preserve

their unique contributions and focus. Music theorists often work in isolation because

other musicians fail to see any practical relevance or application in their work. This is

especially true of performers, who sometimes feel that theorists’ work is too intellectual

and far removed from the art of performance. Music theorists, confined by methods of

analysis that too often emphasize generalities, do not help performers bridge that gap. Of

the three disciplines, musicologists exhibit the most openness to interdisciplinary work. It

is no surprise, then, that musicologists began exploring feminist issues earlier than did

their theorist counterparts, although even feminist musicology did not emerge until the

late nineteen eighties. In their efforts to begin deconstructive historical work, feminist

musicologists found it necessary to include music analysis as well.

Patrick McCreless believes that musicology and music theory have much to offer

each other. They meet most clearly “at the joint where analysis shades into interpretation,

where structure shades into hermeneutics. . . . At the site that is the musical work, a

plurality of methodologies naturally leads to a merging of analytical, critical, and

27
historical thinking.” 40 At the juncture of analysis and interpretation, historical awareness

can deepen and enrich analysis, and analysis can deepen and enrich critical historical

interpretation.

This “New Musicology” embraces contextuality and representation in music and

refutes the notion that it is possible to separate music from its cultural and historical

setting. It embraces women’s issues as well as other previously marginalized areas such

as ethnomusicology, black music, and popular music. It includes power issues such as

class, age, ethnicity, and gender differences in addition to traditional issues such as

nationalism, style, and genre. Scholarly work in New Musicology involves critical studies

of music as both product and promulgator of a gendered social order, recovery work of

music by women, critical examinations of the process of canon formation and received

wisdom, concepts of talent and genius, ruling standards of aesthetic values, impacts of

social context on music making, queer studies, performativity, and reading gender–or

resistance to it–in individual pieces by both women and men.

All of this represents a radical departure from certain nineteenth-century

musicological concepts, most notably the idea of absolute music, set forth by German

aesthetician Eduard Hanslick (1825-1904). Hanslick insisted that true music must be

understood only in relation to itself. He postulated that musical purity lay not in extra-

musical associations or representations but only in its tonally moving forms. This

position demonstrates one of the most overt examples of how rationalist Enlightenment

values (dominated by male supremacy) influenced music aesthetics. In response, Ruth

Solie points out that “the emergence of a music intended to be perceived as abstract and

40
Patrick McCreless, “Music Theory and Historical Awareness,” MTO 6:30 (August 2000).
http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/issues.html (accessed April 21, 2006).

28
‘absolute’ is in itself a phenomenon wholly saturated with cultural meaning.” 41 British

musicologist Daniel Chua writes:

Absolute music . . . discriminates. Indeed, it defines itself by exclusion. The

category of the “extra-musical” was invented in the nineteenth century as the
negative other of the “purely musical.” . . . In this ideology of the pure, history is
something that is outside music. . . . This purity is not a condition of truth. . . . It is
a strategy designed to silence the historian. After all, the only response that befits
an ineffable music is speechlessness. 42

Musicology, Feminism, and Deconstruction

Musicologist Suzanne Cusick offers an example of how deconstructive feminist

scholarship can change history’s perspective on a musical work in her examination of

Francesca Caccini’s opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (1625). 43

Cusick’s research into the commissioning, funding, and performance of this opera reveals

the feminist aspects of the opera’s social context. The Archduchess Maria Maddalena of

Austria, one of Florence’s two women regents, commissioned and funded this opera in

celebration of her daughter’s engagement. 44 The marriage would have a widespread

political impact, heightening the Archduchess’s international influence. Not only does the

social contextuality surrounding the opera’s creation have feminist significance; the

libretto also addresses the paradox faced by a powerful woman trapped between her

identity as a woman and the requirements of being a ruler in a male-dominated society.

Cusick writes:

41
Solie, “Feminism,” 665.
42
Daniel K. L. Chua, Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning (Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 4-5.
43
Suzanne G. Cusick, “Of Women, Music, and Power: A Model from Seicento Florence,” in
Musicology and Difference, 281-304.
44
Ibid., 282-83.

29
 Considering the importance to her own career as regent that the archduchess
assigned to this occasion, it is not surprising that all the surviving works of the
1625 season are to a greater or lesser extent gynocentric: each explores the way a
woman’s power might create a benevolent outcome to the plot. By far the most
gynocentric of these, and the most original in its exploration of the possibilities of
female power within the seicento masterplot, is Caccini’s La liberazione–the one
entertainment composed by a women, and the one paid for from the archduccess’s
private fund. 45

Cusick’s feminist investigation into the opera’s contextual formation then leads

into a detailed examination of the opera’s gendered power relationships as exhibited both

in the characters and in the music that accompanies them. Cusick shows how both

librettist and composer challenge the expected, traditional “patriarchal masterplot” by

“shift[ing] both deceit and dominance from their traditional association with the female to

association with the male.” 46 Cusick concludes that, through the characters (especially

the sorceress Melissa), the opera “warn[s] all women who would wield power that . . .

they can succeed in enacting their will only if they speak and act from within the

androcentric discourse of patriarchy, repressing what is feminine within them. Caccini’s

opera thus affirms both the dynastic and personal political agenda of its patron,

Archduchess Maria Maddalena.” 47 Clearly, contextuality and attention to women’s

perspectives produces a very different reading from one that may have resulted from

traditional musicological approaches.

45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., 292.
47
Ibid., 304.

30
Music and Gender

Although gender (and other aspects of musical semantics) is more easily

identified in music with text, observes Jeffrey Kallberg, “uncovering the workings of

gender in even the most ‘absolute’ musical contexts has . . . emerged as a basic task of

the critical exploration of music.” 48 One area in which social meaning has emerged from

informed analyses of music once thought absolute is found in the feminist-oriented

studies of Susan McClary. In her introduction to Feminine Endings, a landmark

contribution to feminist musicology published in 1991, McClary writes:

I am painfully aware that this volume . . . is being assembled at a time when cynical
voices in many other fields are beginning to declare feminism to be passé. It almost
seems that musicology managed miraculously to pass directly from pre- to
postfeminism without ever having to change–or even examine–its ways.” 49

McClary’s controversial interpretations surrounding gender encoding in music lead her to

conclude that tonal instrumental music uses pre-formed codes derived from opera, in

addition to autonomous codes developed through the compositional conventions

operating at the time the music was written. The principles of tension and release that

form much tonal syntax, for example, relate directly to desire, or longing, and satisfaction

in both vocal and instrumental music.

McClary’s analyses of tonality, thematicism, form, and musical patterns in tonal

music find that these traditional compositional procedures functioned as vehicles of

gendered musical expression. In regard to tonality McClary writes, “The linear unfolding

of tonality almost always pursues a narrative-like series of dramatic events, regardless of

48
Jeffrey Kallberg, “Gender,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., v. 9,
ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 2001): 645.
49
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 5.

31
the matter at hand.” 50 She describes tonality as “goal-oriented . . . dynamic, progressive,

rational, and driven by mechanisms that arouse and eventually satisfy desire.” 51 McClary

finds that tonal musical syntax contains sexual agendas that, intended or not by the

composers, undermined women.

Leo Treitler, in his essay on gender duality in music, discusses how Jean-Jacques

Rousseau (1712-78) equates effeminacy with corruption of an ideal. Rousseau compares

the “unregulated undulations” of Oriental chant, traditionally viewed as feminine in

nature, with its “organic, harmonious, homogeneous, logical” characteristics of European

plainchant. Treitler writes that Western emphasis on the superiority of formal design is

“easily decoded as a celebration of the masculine (because it can be shown that

excellence of form and the faculty of reason have been treated historically as masculine

traits).” Although decidedly in favor of deconstructive historical work in plainchant

research, Treitler points out that feminist representational analyses exploring power,

sexual domination, and women’s oppression in tonal music may exclude other equally

valid representational analyses. He warns that scholars need a “context of agreement . . .

for conveyance of meaning” and “guidelines for choosing interpretations and criteria of

evaluation.” 52

Treitler’s admonitions demonstrate the concern some scholars express that

feminism is too specialized, and that academia must retain some basis for judgment in the

face of feminist challenges to the received wisdom that constitutes much of the present

50
Susan McClary, Conventional Wisdom (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of
California Press, 2000), 66-67. The third chapter of her book Conventional Wisdom addresses this issue in
works of Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli, Vivaldi, Bach, and Mozart.
51
Ibid., 67.
52
Leo Treiter, “Gender and Other Dualities of Music History,” in Musicology and Difference, 37.

32
academic structure. Jeffrey Kallberg writes that “filtering gender through the formalistic

vocabularies of modern musical analysis could perpetuate anachronistic interpretations

for eras in which concerns with form remained secondary to other kinds of musical

engagement.” 53 Chris Beasley provides an insightful answer to these concerns. She

writes, “Feminism can be viewed as drawing upon older traditions . . . and yet offering a

definite recognizable shift that is more than a mere reaction to established custom.” 54

And musicologist Fred Maus notes that even composers and theorists such as Schoenberg

and Schenker understood music as a drama of interacting agents. 55 Feminists are not

alone in examining narrativity in music; their concern is extending that concept to include

the possibility of gendered social encoding.

Feminist Music Criticism and Postmodernism

Lawrence Kramer, in his provocative book Classical Music and Postmodern

Knowledge, discusses the various aspects of postmodernism that relate most directly to

musical knowledge as it has been received and as it will be conceived in the future. His

list encompasses feminist theory, archeology and genealogy of knowledge,

psychoanalysis, critique of ideology, neopragmatism, history of sexualities, and popular

culture studies. Kramer draws his definition of postmodernism from Lyotard:

A conceptual order in which grand, synthesizing schemes of explanation have lost

their place and . . . traditional bases of rational understanding–unity, coherence,
generality, totality, structure–have lost their authority if not their pertinence. 56

53
Kallberg, “Gender,” New Grove, 646.
54
Beasley, 13.
55
Fred Everett Maus, “Music as Drama,” Music Theory Spectrum 10 (1988): 56-73.
56
Lawrence Kramer, Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and
London: University of California Press, 1995), 5-6.

33
In their place are thought systems that are “localized, heterogeneous, contestatory, and

contested,” that focus on diversity, seek to enhance the mobility of meaning, and insist on

the relativity of all knowledge, including systems that produce knowledge. Accordingly,

“postmodernist strategies of understanding offer . . . new and badly needed means for the

criticism and historiography of the arts to meet, not only their aesthetic, but also their

social and conceptual responsibilities.” 57

Musical postmodernism, by extension, offers a view of music history that erodes

boundaries between past and present, places less emphasis on structural unity, and

acknowledges popular music’s place in society. Cultural, social, and political contexts

define meaning for the composer, the listener, and the performer; therefore,

understanding music requires multiple interpretations. 58 This postmodernist vision

“would satisfy the demand for human interest, not by making good on music’s lack of

meaning, but by ceasing to entertain the illusion that such a lack ever existed.” 59

***

Feminist scholarship significantly broadens the potential for finding new ways of

performing and analyzing music. The work is complex, involving interdisciplinary

approaches and requiring one to be willing to question what was previously accepted as

fact. This received wisdom may need to be extended, reworked, or even discarded. These

kinds of decisions will vary from one analyst to another and from one work to another–

even among different works studied by the same analyst. The feminist analyst and

57
Ibid.
58
Lawrence Kramer, “The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism,” in Postmodern
Music/Postmodern Thought, ed. Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner (New York and London: Routledge,
2002), 13-26.
59
Kramer, Classical Music, 25.

34
performer must assimilate and incorporate a vast array of philosophies outside the field of

music and must continually strive to expand her own knowledge base. This work is

ongoing and ever changing. It opens up the possibilities for multiple valid critical

interpretations, since each individual works out of her own context. The following

chapter will examine feminist music theory with a view to providing some examples of

the different approaches and philosophies that characterize this emerging field of

scholarly endeavor.

35
 CHAPTER TWO

WHAT IS FEMINIST MUSIC THEORY?

At the plenary session for the 1998 annual meeting of the Society for Music

Theory (SMT), Dr. Janet Schmalfeldt, President of the Society from 1997-99, challenged

her audience to ask why scholars in their field had lagged so far behind other fields in

addressing the tension between contextuality, musical autonomy, and the role of music

theorists in the second half of the twentieth century:

Our initial prestige in the American academy . . . rested on our promise that we
could explain music in purely musical terms, rather than merely effuse about it.
Better yet, we could promise to do this at a time when most musicologists were not
particularly interested in theory, analysis, or criticism of any kind. . . . How
comfortable have we become with the notion that music theory might actually
profit from an engagement with some of the great outcries for social change our
society and our world have seen in this century–movements towards real equity in
respect to race, gender, and sexual orientation, with concomitant efforts to undercut
bigotry and parochialism by breaking down cultural hegemonies? 60

Schmalfeldt credits “exhaustive interdisciplinary research” by musicologists–

psychological studies of composers by Maynard Solomon; feminist criticism of literary,

film, and performance-artist products by Susan McClary; postmodernist studies by

Lawrence Kramer; and literary theory and semiotics (and their relation to musical

narrative) by Carolyn Abbate–for finally giving music theorists permission to explore

new horizons. Since 1991, Schmalfeldt writes, even “the more central card-carrying

ranks” of musicologists and music theorists have produced a “profusion of

60
Janet Schmalfeldt, “On Keeping the Score,” Music Theory Online 4:2 (1998).
http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.98.4.2/mto.98.4.2.schmalfeldt_frames.html (accessed April
25, 2006). The essay was delivered as a lecture on Saturday, November 1, 1998, at SMT's annual meeting,
in a Plenary Session entitled "Music Theory: Practices and Prospects."

36
interdisciplinary, cultural, deconstructive, feminist, gender, sexuality, reception, popular,

jazz, and rock studies.” Two of the most compelling characteristics of these studies are,

first, the “rare kind of enthusiasm arising first and foremost from a deep, personal

involvement with the music,” and, second, the fact that the studies “seek new approaches

from with those styles and the cultures that have produced them,” rather than trying to

use old analytic techniques. Schmalfeldt maintains that music theorists can engage in

socially relevant study and continue their scholarly obligation to “keep the score.” 61

Definitions and Examples

The past decade has seen a major move toward exploring and defining feminist

music theory. In part, this involves deconstructing traditional music theory and redefining

it based on feminist values and awareness–not always a welcome prospect among

scholars who pride themselves on the intellectual rigor involved in twelve-tone,

Schenkerian, and pitch-class set analysis. These systems for analysis and formulation of

pitch structures have until very recently constituted the primary vehicles of theoretical

musical investigation and the main content of higher education courses. These universal

methods for analysis leave little room for musical representation, opinion, or cultural

context within the realm of analysis. Since performers, on the other hand, emphasize

these very aspects of music, they often find little use for the highly analytical (and

supposedly objective) approaches espoused by traditional theorists. Thus, a chasm exists

between performers and theorists–a chasm that can be bridged by the contributions of

feminist music theory.

61
Ibid.

37
 Feminist music theorist Rosemary Killam’s definition of feminist music theory

does not discard traditional theoretical stances but appropriates and simultaneously

deconstructs them, taking into account women’s experiences and avoiding unilateral

judgments. Feminist music theory may include musicological work and “celebrate

multiple relationships between music, music theory and the cultures in which these

relationships are developed.” It is “process-oriented, including concepts of drama and

myth, noting that myth includes rather than excludes truth.” 62 Feminist music theory

avoids imposing an analysis on a work–an error often committed in traditional analysis.

Killam states that theorists who impose an analysis on a work are creating “private power

relationships” over the music. Feminist music theory, by contrast, recognizes that

analyses reflect the individual analysts themselves. Because each analyst approaches a

work out of her or his own contextuality, each analysis will be different. Therefore, the

possibilities for multiple critical examinations of any one work are as numerous as the

theorists who undertake to analyze it.

In her article “A Woman’s (Theoretical) Work,” 63 feminist music theorist Marion

Guck writes about her own situatedness as analyst of the works she studies. “In all of my

work, I have argued explicitly and by example that any analysis of music derives

necessarily from personal experience of music and that analyses benefit from the overt

representation of the analyst in the text.” 64 Guck admits that this could lead to essentialist

thinking. For instance, one could regard scientifically conceived analyses from theorists

62
Rosemary Killam, “Feminist Music Theories—Process and Continua,” Music Theory Online
0/8 (1994).
63
Perspectives of New Music 32 (1994): 28-43.
64
Ibid., 29.

38
like Milton Babbitt and Allen Forte as masculine because they disregard personal

experience and emotion. Nevertheless, Guck believes it possible for a theorist to integrate

the “warring elements” of close score reading and contextual analysis in a way which

creates a more satisfying whole. That entails “chang[ing] what counts as music theory:”

I have been trying to change the rule of discourse by which we music theorists
agree that we will not talk about our personal–emotional and physical–involvement
in musical works . . . because thereby we can augment and enrich the qualities that
we can ascribe to works and the involvement we have with them. 65

An analysis that highlighted the analyst’s involvement with a work would include

“integrating vivid, response-depicting language with more traditional, analytical

language.” 66 This kind of approach would also include the important but often-neglected

element of listening. Guck writes that, ultimately, analysis should be an “inductive

process that begins with, and ideally returns to, attentive listening.” 67 Attentive listening

informs the theorist and effects change, refining her or his analysis as understanding of

the music deepens:

My analyses have grown out of a way of listening to music that [includes]

receptivity, concern to let the piece speak, care to try to let it determine the
theoretical account even if I have to invent something to get there, even if it
doesn’t fit the categories I have been familiar with or category-type distinctions at
all. 68

Bibliographies of feminist music theory frequently cite works by Claire Detels, a

musicologist, performer, and professor of interdisciplinary arts and gender studies at the

University of Arkansas. In her article “Autonomist/Formalist Aesthetics, Music Theory,

65
Ibid., 33.
66
Ibid., 37.
67
Ibid., 40.
68
Ibid., 39.

39
and the Feminist Paradigm of Soft Boundaries” 69 she strongly criticizes traditional music

theory pedagogy in higher education and briefly traces the history of music theory from a

feminist viewpoint. Music theory, she writes, is the ultimate form of categorization: “a

profusion of structural concepts and analytic procedures.” 70 Detels disdains the field’s

separatist, elitist, and masculinist viewpoints that contain, categorize, and rank musical

works, meanwhile cutting out physical, emotional, and cultural aspects that connect art to

culture and human experience.

Detels compares constructed music theory to the feminist paradigm of the “male

gaze” in art, where refocusing the gaze on gender and power relationships reveals the

relationships among the patrons, artists, and models who participated in their making.

She also questions analysis of printed scores because the scores constitute a mere visual

representation of an aural experience:

The practice of analyzing from the score ignores strong historical evidence that
composers are not solely responsible for their musical works. Rather, performers
are usually to some extent the co-creators of musical structures, not to mention
musical experiences, in ways which depart from the notational indications in every
musical parameter, including the fundamentals of duration and pitch. 71

Trying to impose a generic theoretical model on any specific musical work creates

a problem that Detels calls a “hard boundary.” Defining music by way of a standardized

terminology, for instance–“musical work,” “movement,” “section,” “period,” “phrase,”

“chord progression,” “motive,” “interval,” “pitch”–sterilizes the music. Rather than using

pre-conceived models to dictate what elements deserve analytic attention and using

69
Claire Detels, “Autonomist/Formalist Aesthetics, Music Theory, and the Feminist Paradigm of
Soft Boundaries,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52/1 (Winter 1994):: 113-126.
70
Ibid., 113.
71
Ibid., 118.

40
formulas to fit those elements into models, Detels calls for a give-and-take approach–

what she calls “soft boundaries”–based upon “the actual experience of music in a cultural

context.” She wants theorists to avoid “hard-boundaried preferences for intellectual

experience and . . . the logocentric subordination of experience to theory.” 72 She suggests

employing terminology that could include language of the period in which the music was

written, especially language associated with bodily gestures used when performing the

music, the organization of accompanying texts, dramatic representations, sacred rites, or

work functions. Analysis would include looking at how the music was composed,

performed, heard, taught, danced, moved, worked, or prayed to. Detels also advocates

deconstructing received wisdom regarding universal notation practices in order to

promote contextual understanding. This approach to analysis would apply equally to

absolute music as to other more obviously representational works.

Most analyses, she contends, neglect rhythm, which is “tangibly physical,

emotional, and cultural” and therefore one of the most important links to contextuality. In

that regard, Detels writes:

The key to unlocking the meanings of supposedly autonomous structures of sound

is probably rhythm, because it has the strongest ties to music’s physical and
emotional impact, and the weakest ties to formalist analysis. It’s obvious that
musical rhythm is related to dance, and other socially-constructed patterns of
movement, and that such patterns themselves have cultural roots and functions. 73

Feminist music theorists can help bring art music back to the public: “Music theory

. . . would be accessible and interesting to many people, because it would help to explain

their own experience with the music, rather than superimposing a complex formalist

72
Ibid., 119.
73
Ibid., 121.

41
analysis of no apparent connection to their experience.” Public experience of art music

might include psychoanalysis as a means of exploring underlying meanings of artistic

symbolism for the composer and her or his culture. Detels cites Walter Abell’s theory of

interpreting meaning in art–the “unified field theory”–that combines Sigmund Freud’s

concepts of individualism and Karl Jung’s concepts of collective unconscious. This type

of work would compare gestures among musical works of the same culture and could

provide increased understanding of the culture (including our own). 74

Analysis of Ruth Crawford’s String Quartet of 1931 (movement III)

In her book Gendering Musical Modernism, Ellie Hisama discusses and compares

the music of twentieth-century composers Ruth Crawford [Seeger], Marion Bauer, and

Miriam Gideon in the light of gender and political context. Hisama strives to connect

biography and musical structure in a way that “enables a listener to experience new and

compelling ways of understanding music.” 75 A music theorist and musicologist, Hisama

does not attempt to formulate a general feminist music theory, and she does not believe

that these three women composers necessarily constructed their music as feminist

statements. Nevertheless, her analyses reveal possible gender encoding that mirrors the

composers’ individual experiences as women who functioned in a male-dominated field.

Her contextual approach begins with biographical information on each of the three

composers, including both personal and musical influences on them, and then examines

two or three works in detail. Hisama’s examination of the third movement of Ruth

74
Ibid.
75
Ellie Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford [Seeger], Marion
Bauer, and Miriam Gideon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),10.

42
Crawford [Seeger’s] String Quartet (1931, revised 1938) provides an excellent example

of contextual, interdisciplinary feminist scholarship.

Ruth Crawford’s String Quartet of 1931 (and 1938) constitutes a landmark of

twentieth-century chamber music. Its atonality and innovative interactions among the

four instruments certainly classify it as a modernist work. 76 Crawford herself described it

as “a study in dissonant dynamics, the waxing and waning of crescendos and

diminuendos carefully organized to allow a melody to be shaped through single pitches in

each instrument.” 77 Crawford’s description suggests a modernist outlook–finding new

ways of composing as alternatives to traditional approaches that used tonality and

common organizational strategies. Her original 1931 version of the third movement

lacked a climax in measure seventy-five, but she later revised the movement for string

orchestra in an attempt to highlight a melody she had distributed among the four parts.

Theorist Robert Morgan writes that “the four instruments are staggered in such a way that

each of the four voices alternately emerges from and recedes into the total sound mass.

The form of the movement is defined by a gradual expansion of register, from the low,

restricted opening, to a widely-spaced chord in triple stops, after which there is a return to

the low register of the beginning.” 78

Hisama begins her analysis with description:

[I]ts opening bars . . . draw the listener into an unfamiliar sound-world . . . in

which the voices twist over, then under one another, come together and veer apart,

76
This term primarily describes music in the 1930s written by composers such as Schoenberg,
Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, and Varèse, who strove to break completely with established compositional
procedures and forge new ways of writing music and even of conceiving of musical sounds.
77
Oliver Knussen, Ruth Crawford Seeger Portrait (Hamburg: DG 449925-2, 1997), liner notes by
Judith Tick.
78
Ruth Crawford Seeger et al., String Quartet, The Composers Quartet, Nonesuch LP H-71280,
1973.

43
 creeping up all the while. . . . [A]bout three-quarters of the way through the work,
the voices crescendo to fff, attack triple-stops, and snap apart–that is, the piece
reaches a climax. The voices then swiftly descend and return to the soft and slow
quality of the opening to conclude the movement. 79

In her feminist reading Hisama draws upon anthropologist Edwin Ardener’s

theory that “women in a society operate both within a dominant group and in a space

outside it.” 80 According to Ardener’s theory, women express themselves in ways that are

acceptable to men in order to be heard. Meanwhile, the feminist message may be hidden

behind a status quo façade. Suspecting that this could be the case with the obvious climax

in the Quartet’s third movement, Hisama focuses not on what causes this piece to belong

in the modernist category, but rather on what seems out of place, missing, or stylistically

uncharacteristic for this kind of music. The presence of an obvious climax raises a red

flag because it seems incongruent with modernism; therefore, she looks to a feminist

reading for further insight. She writes:

Ruth Crawford often found herself pushed to the outside of professional

circles. . . . As a result . . . her compositions became a site of resistance, speaking
in what the literary theorist Elaine Showalter calls a “double-voiced discourse”
that embodies both the muted and the dominant voices.81

Hisama finds that Crawford’s writing differs from traditional quartet writing in

several ways. Normal registrations–what Hisama terms “registral territory”–are ignored,

and voices that normally do not cross now weave around each other; the frequent melody

and accompaniment texture gives way to equality in all voice parts; finally, the

79
Ellie M. Hisama, “The Question of Climax in Ruth Crawford’s String Quartet, Mvt. 3,” in
Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, ed. Betsy Marvin and Richard
Hermann (Rochester NY: University of Rochester, 1995), 285.
80
Ibid., 292.
81
Ibid.

44
movement is extremely brief. By examining the four voices of the string quartet in terms

of their respective ranges, crossing of the voices, individual tessituras, intervallic

relationships, timing of pitch changes, collective dynamic and activity levels, Hisama

finds an undercurrent that may parody or even subvert the traditional climax:

Using Ardener’s theoretical framework, I shall claim that while Crawford’s

Quartet movement seems to work its way up to a traditional climax, it actually
creates a musical space within which another procedure subverts the climax. . . .
Consequently, rather than having to conclude that the movement’s promise of a
new musical vision is spoiled by an unimaginative narrative strategy, we may
alternatively understand it as challenging or even parodying a nineteenth-century
climax and might contemplate the possibility that the foiling of the climax is in
some way related to Crawford’s experience as a woman. Her composition, then,
would be not just revolutionary but also distinctly feminist in undercutting a
dominant, masculinist musical narrative by including a second narrative wholly
independent of the first. 82

Example 1. Hisama’s voice leading graph 83

Hisama’s graph (above), which shows the pitch relations among the four string

quartet voices, depicts the following activity:

82
Ibid., 293.
83
Ibid., 285.

45
 1. How the four voices relate to each other: close spacing (often within the space

of a minor third), continuous overlapping;

2. Shifting pitches that “twist and weave” in ever increasing intricacy;

3. Equal importance in all four parts, creating a dense texture, and cooperative

work;

4. Gradual ascent together to a fortissimo breaking point where they split apart–

the site of the obvious climax in a traditional reading.

Crawford’s distinctive compositional technique thus leads Hisama to formulate a

new theory that measures what she terms “twist”–the degree of voice crossing that occurs

simultaneously. Defining the reference state of voice placement as that in which violin

one occupies the highest register, violin two the next highest, viola the next and cello the

last, Hisama measures the degree of twist, and therefore intensity, by “the number of

times an instrument is ‘out of sequence’ as compared with the reference pattern.” 84 In

other words, the lowest intensity [0 = 1234] would indicate traditional voice placement,

while the highest intensity [6 = 4321] would indicate the greatest possible twist, or voice

reordering.

Where traditional analysis would suggest that the climax occurs at the point where

the gradually rising, clustered pitches split apart in measure seventy-five, the twist factors

reveal a pattern that subverts this obviously climactic moment. The clusters twist and

untwist in a cyclic pattern that never reaches any sort of climax. In her analysis Hisama

does not equate the twisting and untwisting with tension and release. Rather, she regards

84
Ibid., 298.

46
this as a musical space that operates independently of the musical surface. As such, it

does not comment upon or react to the surface but rather exhibits a totally different

narrative. 85 Hisama states:

Rather than having to conclude that the movement’s promise of a new musical
vision is spoiled by an unimaginative narrative strategy, we may alternatively
understand it as challenging or even parodying a nineteenth-century climax and
might contemplate the possibility that the foiling of the climax is in some way
related to Crawford’s experience as a woman. Her composition, then, would not be
just revolutionary but also distinctly feminist in undercutting a dominant,
masculinist musical narrative by including a second narrative wholly independent
of the first. . . . Rather than refusing to answer the compositional call to machismo,
I believe that Ruth Crawford did reply and in the dominant discourse–but she
answered deviously. . . . Thus she managed to speak the language of the “great
tradition” while also maintaining a space of resistance in her art. 86

Hisama’s analysis exhibits a scholarly feminist reading based on historical

contextuality and innovative analysis, and it therefore contributes further insight into this

benchmark of twentieth-century chamber music. Hisama’s analysis takes into account

Ruth Crawford’s experiences of exclusion and bias against her as a woman, her self-

image, and her leftist political beliefs. 87 As an Asian-American woman, Hisama can

identify with Crawford’s experiences of exclusion, although in a different arena.

Hisama’s empathy with Crawford thus plays one role in her analysis. Hisama concedes

that her analysis may or may not reflect Crawford’s compositional intent. It does,

however, reveal some valid insights that are present in the music regardless of intention.

Peggy Seeger, Ruth’s daughter, commented upon her first hearing of the quartet

after her mother’s death: “I don’t understand how the woman that I knew as a mother

85
Ibid., 301. See footnote 21. It is interesting that Hisama employs the term “narrative,” which
connotes musical meaning, in a formalist analysis.
86
Ibid., 293, 305. Hisama credits Teresa de Lauretis with the phrase devious answer. See de
Lauretis’s Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 7.
87
Ibid., 292.

47
created something like the 1931 string quartet. It is like someone crying; it is like

someone eating on the walls.” 88 Hisama’s analysis seems to meld with this interpretation.

Analysis of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Tast-en

Sally Macarthur, in her Feminist Aesthetics in Music, describes her analytic process

as follows: “The work acts on me, and I act on it. There is a fluid relationship between

me as active analyst and the work as active performance.” As a prelude to her analysis of

Tast-en, a piano piece written in 1991 by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin,

Macarthur explores the intersection of feminist, postmodernist, and modernist theories,

concluding that this intersection exhibits “something of a middle ground between

modernism and postmodernism (the site at which feminism itself might appear).” 89 In her

analysis Macarthur draws from Derrida’s writings about frames, whose lines “surround,

contain, and envelop.” 90 Music both occupies and contains frames. Inside the frame

musical elements are operating–pitch, dynamics, rhythm, timbre, texture, register. The

beginning and ending of a work frame the music itself, while cultural context both

surrounds and penetrates the music:

Music is heard against the silent (otherwise noisy) backdrop of culture, which folds
onto music. In turn, music folds back onto culture. The relationship between music
and culture is always in dynamic flux; it is a fluid relationship that brings into
question the point at which music ceases being music and becomes something else.
It brings into question the limits of the frame itself. 91

88
Judith Tick, interview with Peggy Seeger 8/15/85 in Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer’s
Search for American Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 355.
89
Sally Macarthur, Feminist Aesthetics in Music (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press,
2002), 133.
90
Ibid.
91
Ibid., 134.

48
 Macarthur situates Tast-en in its contextual frame: a keyboard composition that

refers to Bach and Schumann, that comes from and employs the language of a long-

standing virtuosic keyboard tradition (scales, arpeggios, tonality), and that is intended for

performance in a recital hall, where active performer and passive listener occupy separate

spaces. She also situates Kats-Chernin, an Australian composer born in Russia in 1957,

who has achieved success as a composer despite the male-dominated Australian culture

in which she has spent most of her adult years. Macarthur bases her discussion of Tast-

en’s background on correspondence with the composer. From her personal knowledge,

Macarthur ties the work’s ending, which sounds “unresolved, open-ended, and gaping,” 92

to events in Kats-Chernin’s life at the time she wrote the composition–her father’s cancer

and her resultant struggle with the issues of life and death.

Macarthur then moves into her own role as analyst, pointing out the work’s

organization and prominent features. Drawing from these factors, a conventional analysis

would classify the work as postmodern. Macarthur’s feminist perspective, however,

brings to light “some of the unusual strategies deployed by Kats-Chernin.” 93 Although

Kats-Chernin does not identify herself as a feminist, Macarthur points out that she has,

nevertheless, demonstrated feminist thought throughout this composition:

In addition to providing a highly original critique of piano music, parodying the

abundance of pianistic gestures that belong to a particular tradition of writing for
the instrument, the composer continually undermines the hierarchies that emerge
out of the binary relations that she creates in the music itself. She draws attention,
for example, to the divisions between her particular cultural context for this music.
. . . [I]n her search for new sounds or in her challenging of old sounds (e.g., bell
sounds, quotations of Bach and Schumann, the use of the flamenco rhythm, and so

92
Ibid., 142.
93
Ibid., 139.

49
 on) to sound new, she also invites her feminist spectator/auditor who feels/hears/
reads her work to join in the search, to join in her pleasure. 94

Macarthur’s study of pitch centers, implied tonality, and formal events reveals that,

although the work suggests a conventional climax, the climax never actually occurs. “The

music feels as if it should be climaxing–all the sensations for climax are in place, indeed,

in the right place–but instead it turns out to be nothing more than an illusion.” 95

Macarthur concludes that, ultimately, Tast-en must be heard in order to

understand an analysis. She likens her analysis to a performance that exists in a frame and

that invites additional interpretations, so that the cycle continues. “To that extent, it

parallels the work upon which it is discursively dependent, for Tast-en is without closure;

indeed, it seems to announce its rebirth at the moment of closure, thus recycling itself for

eternity.” 96 Macarthur sees her task as an analyst as an effort to “transform Tast-en into a

text, rewriting it by illuminating some of its meanings. . . . Above all, my reading and

writing of this work derive from my desire to know it.” 97

Feminist Music Theory and the Sonata

Of all the instrumental genres and compositional procedures that have come under

close scrutiny in feminist scholarly research, the sonata and its typical compositional

procedure, sonata-allegro form, have received the most attention. There are good reasons

for this. The sonata genre with its long and traceable history is considered the gold

94
Ibid., 140.
95
Ibid., 144.
96
Ibid.,145.
97
Ibid., 137.

50
standard for serious instrumental music. Musicologists and music theorists have produced

exhaustive studies on the subject, and theorists have documented and codified models

that provide a basis for analysis.

The fact that theorists have generalized and codified the sonata and sonata-allegro

procedure makes the history and contextuality of sonata analysis a particularly interesting

feminist study, especially given the gradually increasing lapse between codified and

actual compositional practice. The possibility of narrative content in this instrumental

genre–including sexual references and gender encoding–provides an excellent forum in

which to study absolute music, gendered issues, musical representation, and social

statement across a broad span of western music.

Generally, music theorists classify the sonata according to their perceptions of the

composer’s primary focus. Eighteenth- and twentieth-century composers generally

emphasized harmonic plans, while nineteenth-century composers focused primarily on

thematic content. Feminist deconstructionists have examined both harmonic and thematic

content in sonata first movements with startling revelations. One of the most potent and

controversial discussions in this vein involves harmonic and thematic hierarchies in first

movements of sonatas. A. B. Marx, whose 1845 treatise Die Lehre von der musikalischen

Komposition uses gendered language to describe and differentiate as masculine and

feminine the usual two themes of an exposition, 98 has provided an exceptional amount of

fuel for feminist objections. He writes that the first, masculine, theme has a “primary

freshness and energy . . . dominating and determining the future.” The second, feminine

98
Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, 2nd ed, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1845), 221. Translated
and quoted in James Hepokoski, “Masculine-Feminine: (En)gendering Sonata Form,” Musical Times 135
(August 1994): 494.

51
theme contrasts, depends on, and is determined by the first theme. It is “milder [and]

more supple than emphatically shaped.” 99

Susan McClary’s work on the sonata stands at the forefront of these

deconstructive efforts. Her extensive investigations of sexuality in sonata-allegro form 100

examine gender issues in both harmonic and thematic arenas. Tonality sets up systems

that create constant tensions and resolutions, expectations and satisfactions. The manner

in which a composer manipulates the harmonic possibilities creates sexually charged

musical situations that allude to desire, denial, and a host of other possible sexual

scenarios. She writes:

In sonata, the principal key/theme clearly occupies the narrative position of

masculine protagonist; and while the less dynamic second key/theme is necessary
to the sonata or tonal plot (without this foil or obstacle, there is no story), it serves
the narrative function of the feminine Other. Moreover, satisfactory resolution–the
ending always generically guaranteed in advance by tonality and sonata procedure–
demands the containment of whatever is semiotically or structurally marked as
“feminine,” whether a second theme or simply a non-tonic key area. 101

McClary contends that sonata-allegro form is the site of a sexual struggle between

the masculine and the feminine, not only in the music itself (because the initial tonality

always triumphs over the secondary tonality, although sometimes after bitter combat in

the development), but also beyond the music. Its clearly sexualized construction

perpetuates a triumphant masculine outcome because the masculine/feminine binary

oppositions inherent in both its tonality and its thematic construction influence composers

99
Hepokoski, “Masculine-Feminine: (En)gendering Sonata Form,” 494. See also Feminine
Endings, 13.
100
First movement organizational plan taught as a conventional model because of its widespread
use over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
101
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota, 1991), 15.

52
and theorists alike on both a conscious and an unconscious level. This is demonstrated,

she asserts, by the language used by pedagogues to describe musical events such as

cadences (“masculine” and “feminine”) and musical phenomena such as tension and

release (described by Schenker as “attraction and repulsion” 102 ). In the case of sonata-

allegro themes, McClary points out that nineteenth-century treatises such as Marx’s were

codifying practices that began much earlier:

The fact that themes were not referred to in this fashion until the mid-nineteenth
century does not mean that earlier pieces are free of gendered marking: the themes
of many an eighteenth-century sonata movement draw upon the semiotics of
“masculinity” and “femininity” as they were constructed on the operatic stage, and
thus they are readily recognizable in their respective positions within the musical
narratives. . . . [T]he gender connotations of the opening “Mannheim rockets” or
“hammerstrokes” and the sighing second themes in Stamitz symphonies are so
obvious as to border on the cartoonish, even if neither he nor his contemporaries
actually called the respective themes “masculine” and “feminine.” 103

On a narrative level the energetic first theme dominates the contrasting, gentler

second theme–the negative Other–in placement, in harmonic treatment, and in the violent

conflict during the development. In the recapitulation the second theme conforms to the

key of the first theme, altering itself in order to resolve the conflict. Thus, one of the

longest running and most popular musical genres served to perpetuate a gendered social

order.

Feminist musicologist Marsha Citron notes that the gendered thematic descriptions

of sonata-allegro procedure in nineteenth-century theoretical treatises may have been

“motivated by a fear of the feminization of music.” Nineteenth-century lyricism and

102
Ibid.,13.
103
Feminine Endings, 14. McClary explains that the codes emerged in the seventeenth century and
were given clear definition by theorists in the eighteenth century. Although by the nineteenth century they
were no longer acknowledged by aestheticians, the codes had become such a standard part of music’s
vocabulary that they continued to function as musical communicators. See also Solie, Musicology and
Difference, 329.

53
expressivity may “be perceived as a feminine assault on the masculinity in the music and

persona of Beethoven and others, and by extension on the masculinity of the (mostly

male) practitioners themselves. The Other represented by the second theme “must be

squelched so that the inexorable dominance of the tonic emerges as victor.” 104

McClary’s Reading of Brahms’s Third Symphony

In her summary of her analysis of the first movement of Brahms’s Symphony

No. 3 in F major (1883), Susan McClary states:

Brahms’s Third Symphony presents tonality and sonata in a state of narrative crisis.
. . . [By] excavating the suppressed narrative strategies of composers such as
Brahms, we can learn a great deal about the music itself–not just its formal
intricacies, but its human and historical dimensions as well. 105

McClary’s reading of the first movement of this symphony suggests that its

gendered constructs reveal personal issues in Brahms’s life as well as dimensions of the

human struggle in the historical context of the late nineteenth century. McClary examines

the sexual nature of Brahms’s themes and their ensuing treatment in the development and

recapitulation. Thematic treatment in this symphonic movement, she concludes, works

very differently from the norm. The opening gesture is masculine, “shov[ing] up by

means of apparently Herculean effort to a point of release that hurls us into the first

movement’s narrative.”

104
Marsha Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1993), 138.
105
McClary, in Solie, Musicology and Difference, 343-44.

54
Example 2. Brahms Symphony No. 3 – Motto 106

The tantalizing and seductive woman of the second theme, however, represents a

Delilah-like figure characterized by “Oriental exoticism, dizzying rhythms, and seductive

sensuality.”

Example 3. Second theme in A major (exposition, transposed clarinet part)

It “rob[s] the movement’s implied trajectory of its energy. . . . It shears off the crucial A-

flat that is the secret of the hero’s strength and domesticates that pitch for its own

purposes.” 107 In the recapitulation the second theme does not conform to the key area of

the first theme (the usual treatment) but rather appears in a key area that balances its

original key symmetrically by moving from its A major position (the upper third to F

major) to the lower third, D major. This harmonic encircling of F major produces a

106
Johannes Brahms, Complete Symphonies in Full Orchestral Score, ed. Hans Gàl (London and
Toronto: Dover, 1974),161.
107
McClary, in Solie, Musicology and Difference, 338-39.

55
powerful and balanced feminine element that lures the masculine hero over to her side,

rather than succumbing to the masculine tonic. McClary writes that this strong feminine

element sends the first theme “drift[ing] downward without resistance to resigned

acceptance of closure in F Major” at the end of the movement, rather than ending in a

triumphant shout as might be expected in an opening movement to a symphony–

especially one that starts with such a strong heroic thrust. 108

Example 4. Final thrust and downward drift to the end 109

Exposing the violence and conflict that have long been stifled in the name of pure music,

McClary writes, helps the music live and speak again.

108
Ibid., 341. McClary points out that even diehard absolutists such as Hanslick and Dahlhaus
have puzzled over this unorthodox ending.
109
Johannes Brahms, Complete Symphonies 186.

56
Multiple Critical Interpretations

In his article “A. B. Marx and the Gendering of Sonata Form,” theorist Scott

Burnham counters feminist objections to Marx’s designations of gendered themes in

sonata-allegro movements. Because Marx focuses on the progressive nature of musical

flow and the interdependence of the first and second themes in creating the ultimate

outcome, Burnham believes Marx’s concepts were actually progressive for his time. He

writes, “Marx’s metaphor was a poetic attempt to address th[e] complexit[ies]” (of

thematic relationships), 110 particularly in nineteenth-century sonatas, where melody

predominates over harmony (as opposed to both eighteenth- and twentieth-century

examples of the genre). “[The] once sectionalized themes are now interdependent, for the

sake of a more highly integrated and, in Marx’s scheme of things, more highly evolved

whole.” 111

A highly informative study can result by examining different analyses of the same

composition. Most analyses of Brahms’s Third Symphony, for example, assign some

kind of meaning to the opening motto. Beyond that, however, the focus varies

immensely. Among the most interesting analyses is that of the late German scholar Carl

Dahlhaus, whose discussion contains some ideas that sound remarkably feminist, yet are

derived very differently from McClary’s. Dahlhaus’s analysis focuses on Brahms’s use of

the “grand gesture” as the basis of the entire first movement. It “makes its presence felt

everywhere but never courts monotony, since its formal significance and harmonic-tonal

110
Scott Burnham, “A. B. Marx and the Gendering of Sonata Form,” in Music Theory and the Age
of Romanticism, ed. Ian Bent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 183.
111
Burnham, 185. Burnham also points out that a thematic rather than a harmonic model of sonata
form places less emphasis on power relationships.

57
function constantly change.” The changing nature of the idea “intrudes deep into the

formal process by the modulations it occasions or melodically sustains and by the

diverging compositional roles it variously serves. Yet, with its simple melodic gesture

and tenacious omnipresence, it also manifests that urge to monumentality without which

the symphonic style cannot exist.” 112 Dahlhaus represents a middle ground between

musicologists who focus primarily on musical representation and theorists who might

reject such an approach because of its lack of analytic detail. He writes:

A psychological interpretation (which, however, can never be decisive in the final

analysis) springs immediately to mind–namely, that Brahms’s symphonies, though
the heirs of Beethoven’s, are in fact directed not at the bourgeois public as a whole
but primarily at the individual listener, at the “subject” immersed in his feelings
and thoughts. 113

Musicologist and theorist Fred Everett Maus 114 draws parallels between literary

theory and dramatic musical progression and narrative. In that regard, Maus suggests that

sonata form provides an obvious context. Maus writes, “For at least some music, a

satisfactory account of structure must already be an aesthetically oriented narration of

dramatic action.” 115 In a thought-provoking article titled “Music as Drama” Maus

demonstrates how analyses can emphasize musical flow and thus show narrativity in a

musical work. In the article he writes that the limitations of theory and analysis “have . . .

discourage[d] the study of more obscure and demanding aspects of music.” Maus

112
Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley, Los Angeles,
and London: University of California Press, 1989), 270-71.
113
Ibid., 269. Italics added.
114
University of Virginia. Dr. Maus’s research interests include music theory and analysis, gender
and sexuality, popular music, aesthetics, and dramatic and narrative aspects of classical instrumental music.
115
Everett Maus, “Music as Drama,” Music Theory Spectrum 10 (1988): 73.

58
compares musical flow and progression to a play by drawing on the concepts of action,

agency, and event to provide a connection with human experience:

The scheme works by identifying certain events as actions and offering a

distinctive kind of explanation for those events. The explanations ascribe sets of
psychological states to an agent, states that make the action appear reasonable to
the agent and that cause the action. . . . [O]ne important class of explanatory states
includes character traits, moods, and motions. These function in a variety of ways:
they can affect epistemic and motivational states, and they sometimes help to
explain failures of consistency or rationality. 116

Maus’s analysis of the opening section of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 95

combines the familiar language of musical elements with language related to action,

agency, and events, such as the “loud, aggressive, astonishingly brief . . . outburst”

effected by the opening gesture. By emphasizing the dramatic aspects of musical

progression, Maus reveals the music’s living nature, including its references to

psychological and motivational states, character traits, moods, and emotions.

One of Maus’s most intriguing questions concerns the identity of the musical

agent. Is it the composer or the performer? He suggests that the answer is neither; the

agent is, rather, imaginary and indeterminate. The agent or agents exist in the mind of the

listener, and they may change upon different hearings and among different listeners.

Moreover, it is a performer’s challenge to present the music in such a way as to evoke

these agents and to draw the listener into the dramatic action as it unfolds. The resulting

series of dramatic actions form a musical plot that constitutes the true structure of the

music. 117

As demonstrated by McClary’s and Maus’s analyses, traditional analytical

procedures address only a small portion of the possibilities that theoretical analysis holds

116
Ibid., 66-67.
117
Ibid., 72.

59
for lending insight into the music itself. Although it is still helpful to use traditional

language and procedures, the emphasis has changed dramatically. The goal is not

necessarily to graph a picture of a complete work, but to show how the work comes to

life through the interaction of all the musical elements. Clearly, multiple critical

interpretations and different focuses can prove quite valuable. Having the opportunity to

study different analyses of the same composition would surely benefit performers and

would hold greater appeal for listeners and audiences as well. In every instance, the

analyst’s situatedness must be considered in order to understand her or his analysis. Thus,

we have an excellent example of the value that feminism and related concepts such as

postmodernism and deconstruction contribute to the work of music scholarship.

Feminist Music Theory Summarized

Clearly, feminist music theory encompasses many different forms and manifests

itself in a variety of ways. It is difficult at times to separate it from other strains of

thought such as postmodernism, since there is so much mutual influence. No single

approach works for every analyst, every piece, or every genre. Nevertheless, certain

trends pervade the discipline. These include:

1. emphasis on contextuality–putting the composer and the work into socio-cultural

context;

2. interest in exploring musical representation, including gender encoding;

3. willingness to devise new methods of analysis that address specific issues in an

individual piece of music, and openness to using or not using conventional analysis based

on individual circumstance;

60
4. regarding musical elements that are frequently omitted from conventional analysis–

such as rhythm, dynamics, and texture–as integral to a complete picture;

5. regarding the music as a separate entity with a life and voice of its own, apart from the

composer’s intentions, which cannot be ascertained unless there is supporting

documentation from the composer;

6. broadening the scope of analysis to include performer, analyst, and listener, in addition

to composer.

7. including elements such as emotion as viable elements of music analysis.

Feminist music theorists want to change what counts, to emphasize listening, to

broaden the scope, and above all else to avoid imposing an analytical method on any

particular piece of music. Feminist analysis offers very different perspectives from

traditional analysis. Some musicians will relate to it; others will not. It challenges

musicologists and music theorists to work together and raises possibilities for new

approaches to interpretation. It breeds new methods of analysis–beyond those currently

available–that hold value not only for individual pieces but for others that have been

marginalized in favor of the musical canon. Feminist theorists exhibit just as wide a range

of viewpoints and orientations as any other group of scholars–maybe even more because

of the myriad possibilities that feminist explorations have opened up.

In sum, feminist music theorists want to attain greater intimacy with a work by

expanding the scope of analysis to include contextuality. They want analysis to reveal the

personal situatedness of a composer and to open up insights for performers and listeners

that make the music more understandable and more relevant. Feminist analysis seeks to

reveal multiple voices–composer, performer, listener, analyst–and, in music by women,

61
explore the possibility of music that speaks specifically to women’s issues and

experiences.

62
 CHAPTER THREE

FRANCIS POULENC AND HIS OBOE SONATA:

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Francis Poulenc (1899-1964), one of the best known of the group Les Six, active

in France in the 1920s, provides a provocative subject for feminist scholarly exploration.

Research by musicologists Benjamin Ivry (1996) 118 and Richard D.E. Burton (2002) 119

reflects feminist influence and the new musicological approach to music analysis and

demonstrates the contextual, individual examinations that make this kind of study so

rewarding. Their work has provided much helpful insight from which to continue the

present study. Both scholars situate Poulenc’s compositions inside his life’s chronology,

allowing readers to compare and contrast compositions in light of analytical details and

contextuality. Information about Poulenc’s personality, friends, cultural sophistication,

religious influences, and sexual preferences provokes new ideas and questions about the

music that probably would not have surfaced otherwise. Together with earlier writings by

Henri Hell, Poulenc’s first biographer, Keith Daniel, who wrote extensively about

Poulenc’s style and output, and Stéphane Audel, who published his interviews with

Poulenc, they present an excellent starting point for contextual analysis of Poulenc’s oboe

sonata.

118
Benjamin Ivry, Francis Poulenc (London: Phaidon Press, 1996).
119
Richard D. E. Burton, Francis Poulenc (Bath, England: Absolute Press, 2002).

63
 The Context

Born into a privileged Parisian family, Francis Poulenc gained a broad knowledge

of the arts. Stéphane Audel, who compiled Poulenc’s memoirs, comments: “His

knowledge of music, painting, and literature was bewildering.” 120 This highly refined

taste was nowhere more apparent than in Poulenc’s beloved home, an eighteenth-century

country house named Le Grand Coteau (literally, big hill). Furnished impeccably and

landscaped beautifully, Le Grand Coteau contained valuable furniture, books, and art.

In Moi et mes amis, 121 Audel writes that Poulenc’s relationships were extremely

important to him; the pictures lining the walls included portraits of many of his friends,

not only musicians but also artists and writers. “Poulenc was in love with life,

mischievous, good-hearted, tender and pert, sad and serenely mystical, at once monk and

playboy.” 122 Among his most frequently cited friends and influences are harpsichord

virtuosa Wanda Landowska, baritone and performance partner Pierre Bernac, poets Paul

Eluard and Max Jacob, and composers Erik Satie, Manuel de Falla, Arthur Honegger,

Serge Prokofiev (his bridge partner), Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky. In addition to

these outstanding figures, Poulenc’s wider circle of acquaintances and influences

included Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, and many outstanding artists, among them

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Poulenc usually dedicated a composition to one of his friends, although he denied

associating his music with life events. Yet his works were often inspired by people or by

120
Francis Poulenc, My Friends and Myself: Conversations assembled by Stéphane Audel, trans.
James Harding (London: Dennis Dobson, 1978), 21.
121
Ibid.
122
Ibid., 26.

64
emotions, or both. Keith Daniel’s list of Poulenc’s works 123 reveals that most, if not all,

bear dedications–some to living people and others to someone’s memory. 124 The list of

dedicatees shows the depth and breath of Poulenc’s relationships throughout the

European artistic community. It could prove an interesting and perhaps enlightening

endeavor to compare each dedication in the context of Poulenc’s life at the time he wrote

it.

Despite the fine life that he led, Poulenc was plagued with depression. “I’m very

prone to sadness,” he said, “and tend to create what I see out of my own feelings.” 125 His

music reflects these emotional extremes. World War II touched him deeply, even though

he managed to sustain a more normal lifestyle than many of his friends. Some

musicologists postulate that his music reflects an inner struggle between his playboy-type

of social life and his Catholic upbringing. Musicologist and broadcaster Claude Rostand,

in an interview with Poulenc, picked up on the dichotomy in Poulenc’s personality: “the

monk” (le moine), and the “ragamuffin” or “street urchin” (le voyou). 126 Rostand

believed that this split personality came about from the apparent duality between

Poulenc’s parents–his traditionalist, devout Roman Catholic father as opposed to his

social, progressive, and worldly mother. Rostand asserts that Poulenc’s musical output

divides along these lines.

At thirty, with the encouragement of Wanda Landowska, Poulenc publicly

admitted his sexual preference for men, an event that considerably altered his social life

123
Keith Daniel, Francis Poulenc: His Artistic Development and Musical Style (Ann Arbor, MI:
UMI Research Press, 1982), appendix.
124
Daniel, 353f.
125
Ibid., 60.
126
Burton, 15.

65
and caused him to experience some degree of social marginalization. A profound

religious conversion fewer than ten years later (August 1936) brought him back to

Catholicism; nevertheless, he continued living a homosexual lifestyle. Some Poulenc

scholars view the conflict between homosexuality and Catholicism as the source of

paradox evident throughout the rest of his music. Poulenc himself did not believe this to

be so, writing, “I am as sincere in my faith . . . as I am in my Parisian sexuality. . . . The

personality problem is never posed for me. My musical tone is spontaneous and . . . truly

personal.” 127 Nevertheless, Terry Teachout writes, “Poulenc’s lyricism grew deeper and

more intense, and the easy melancholy of his young years gave way to a much darker

emotional tone.” 128 His best-known works exhibit a definite progression from lighter,

though beautiful, songs to deeper, more spiritual liturgical settings. 129

Richard D. E. Burton, a Poulenc scholar and deconstructionist, writes, “Although

Poulenc did not allow his Catholicism to stand in the way of his homosexuality, or his

homosexuality in the way of his Catholicism, he undoubtedly suffered from the tension,

if not the contradictions. . . . Much of his best music issues precisely from that tension

and its always precarious resolution through art.” 130 Burton’s book Francis Poulenc

offers a comprehensive, thought-provoking look at Poulenc’s homosexuality and his

religious conversion. Its chronological, biographical format includes many details of

Poulenc’s daily activities and the specific influences operating at the time he wrote many

127
Ivry, 158.
128
Terry Teachout, “Modernism with a Smile,” Commentary 105:4 (April 1998): 49.
129
Le Bestiare (1919), Les Biches (1923), Cinq poèmes de Paul Eluard (1935), Litanies à la
Vièrge Noire (1936), Tel jour, telle nuit (1936-37), Figure humaine (1943, rev. 1959), La Fraîcheur et le
feu (1950), Dialogues des Carmélites (1953-56), Gloria (1959).
130
Burton, 15.

66
of his works. In his final chapter Burton summarizes his thoughts on Poulenc’s

homosexuality and spirituality: “[Poulenc’s] attitude was, in essence, take me or leave

me, don’t split me into a monk and a musical street monkey, accept me as you find me,

my music, which is born of my suffering, is my portrait.” 131

Although it is beyond the scope of this study to compare music written by male

homosexual musicians to music written by women, women and homosexuals share one

broad common life experience: marginalization. Their problems are different:

homosexual composers’ music is not ignored because it is by homosexuals in the way

that music by women composers has long been ignored because it is written by women.

Nevertheless, the social stigmas commonly associated with a male homosexual lifestyle

could potentially affect their musical output, just as social constrictions against women

(including both heterosexual and lesbian women) potentially affect the way they

compose. Considering his emotional vulnerability, it seems possible that Poulenc literally

wrote the conflicts between his sexuality and Roman Catholic teachings against it into his

music. Whether or not it was intentional is another matter altogether. As the following

analysis will demonstrate, Poulenc’s music emulates characteristics described by French

feminist Julia Kristeva as characteristic of women’s writing and feminine spaces:

emphasis on sound and color, breaks in syntax, and rhythm (as an element of

signification). In writing, she postulates, these characteristics break with the Symbolic

Order and show a lack of inhibition, or repression. 132

131
Ibid., 123.
132
Julia Kristeva, “The Novel as Polylogue,” in Desire in Language (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982), 159-209; trans. Leon Roudiex; quoted in Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought: A
Comprehensive Introduction (Boulder and San Francisco: Westview Press, 1989), 229-231.

67
 A broad sampling of Poulenc’s music reveals a composer who, although more

mature in his later works, retained a relatively stable compositional style throughout most

of his life. Comments from his teachers and other acquaintances often refer to the fact

that one could always recognize Poulenc’s music. Although he experimented briefly with

some of the new techniques being explored in the early twentieth century (most notably

neoclassicism in his 1929 ballet Aubade and serialism in his 1957 Elégie for horn and

piano), Poulenc employed primarily tonal melodies and harmonies–at least, when

compared to the atonal and serial music that burst onto the scene in his formative years.

To his credit, Poulenc’s traditional approach to composition did not render his music

boring; rather, his particular ability allowed him to make standard materials sound new

and fresh.

Poulenc’s gift for melody guided all of his compositional efforts, from the songs

that comprised most of his early output to the large choral works of his later career. His

music can be characterized as freely monodic, sensitive to colors, and full of harmonic

subtleties. 133 His love of art and sensitivity to the parallels among the artistic disciplines

also comes through in his music. Musicologist Marjorie Wharton writes that Poulenc

mentions artist Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) most often in his Journal de mes mélodies. Dufy

frequently used musical themes in his woodcuts, experimenting with the relationship

between art and music; likewise, Poulenc “used blocks of color. . . . In the process of

composing a song, he sometimes heard one line of poetry in one key and another line in a

133
Letter from Poulenc to Lucien Chevallier, 1929, in Robert Orledge, “Poulenc and Koechlin: 58
Lessons and a Friendship” in Francis Poulenc: Music, Art and Literature, pp. 9-47, ed. Sidney Buckland
and Myriam Chimènes (Aldershot; and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999), 16.

68
different key. He never transposed one merely to make it match the other.” 134 Wharton

also notes that Poulenc created transparency in his music by way of extreme open

positions in his chord structures, especially in song accompaniments. She compares

Poulenc’s melodies to arabesques: “curved tendrils, never straight lines . . . extended,

even melismatic passages, which give constant motion and shimmer to the music.” 135

All the artistic disciplines were so intertwined in his music that any analysis must

look for that connection. Poulenc wrote, “If on my tomb could be inscribed: ‘Here lies

Francis Poulenc, the musician of [poets] Apollinaire and Eluard,’ I would consider this

my finest claim to glory,” and “I would like that people think of me as ‘the poet’s

musician.’” 136

Attempts to analyze Poulenc’s music using traditional theoretical tools have, for

the most part, yielded little insight into what really makes this music so appealing.

Nevertheless, summarizing a few distinct characteristics that apply to much of his output

seems a logical way to begin a study of an individual work. The examples given below

come from the research of others. I will then determine whether these same

characteristics (in addition to others) apply to the oboe sonata.

Melody as the outstanding musical element: linear purity and interesting melodic

contours. In addition to the lyricism characteristic of Poulenc’s many songs, Benjamin

Ivry writes of the flute sonata (1956) that, although it lacks a program, its free-soaring

134
Myriam Chimènes, “Poulenc and His Patrons” in Francis Poulenc: Music, Art, and Literature,
ed. Sidney Buckland and Myriam Chimènes (Aldershot; Brookfield, VT:Ashgate, 1999), 194.
135
Ibid., 194.
136
Carl B. Schmidt, Entrancing Muse: A Documented Biography of Francis Poulenc (Hillsdale,
NY: Pendragon Press, 2001), 469.

69
melody may well have been indicative of Poulenc’s romantic life (since the composer

himself associated this soaring quality with sexual expression). 137

Lush harmonies. Poulenc’s mature style abounds with seventh and ninth chords.

Although his music is considered tonal by twentieth-century standards, he made full use

of what theorists often call “expanded tonality.” His use of harmonic color can readily be

linked to programmatic and atmospheric situations. His tonal relationships are flexible

and often characterized by abrupt tonal shifts.

Formal organization used as a programmatic tool rather than as a convention. Despite

its title, the Sonata for two pianos (1952-53) does not employ typical sonata organization.

Of its four movements, Prologue, Allegro molto, Andante lyrico, and Epilogue, “the

composer considered the Andante the focus.” 138 Ivry writes:

The Prologue was not like the first movement of a classical sonata, but a
foreshadowing of the rest of the work. . . . The Allegro molto is a scherzo, whose
most important feature was an “extraordinarily peaceful” central section. . . . The
Epilogue was not intended as a finale, but rather as a recapitulation of the other
three movements. 139

Emotion as a musical element. According to Ivry, Poulenc’s “panoply of scenes and

emotions” continues the French style of composition from Rameau to Chabrier.” 140

Poulenc’s homosexuality, Catholic upbringing, and tendency toward depression provide a

137
Ivry, 195.
138
Ivry, 165.
139
Ibid.
140
Ibid., 24.

70
provocative mix of psychological issues to consider in a contextual analysis of this

composer’s music. Burton writes that this mix of warring elements produced a suffering

in Poulenc that provided the fuel for his creative works. Undoubtedly, part of Poulenc’s

success lies in the unique way he translates emotions into music.

Amalgamation of music with other arts. Ivry describes Poulenc’s Quatre Motets pour un

temps de Noël (1951-52) as “highly visual, the product of a composer who has studied

hundreds of religious paintings.” 141 Poulenc’s intimate associations with certain artists

led him to emulate their practices in his composing. Like his friend the artist Dufy,

Poulenc preferred the “curved tendrils” of the arabesque figure to the straight lines

characteristic of art nouveau. Color and music were so entertwinted that he stated,

“When a melodic idea presents itself to me in a certain key, I can only write it down (for

the first time, of course) in that key.”

Balance, proportion, and clarity. Ivry writes that Poulenc’s best qualities are balance,

proportion, lyricism, humor, simplicity, and clarity. These qualities gel in the delightful

Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano (1926). 142

[The trio] begins as if three card players are sadly telling each other tales of woe. . .
.The wind instruments play a variation on the military “Taps”–the bugle melody
that mourns the military dead–while elliptical piano chords anticipate the jazz style
of Duke Ellington; the three then burst into a brisk skedaddle and the conversation
style piece continues. . . . [Poulenc’s] love for wind instruments shines through
every measure.

141
Ivry, 162.
142
Ibid., 63.

71
Direct or implied program. The horn sonata, an Elégie in memory of horn virtuoso Denis

Brain, whose untimely death in a car accident at age thirty-six shocked the music

community the world over, paints a musical picture of the abrupt death: “Striding

impulses break off abruptly,” and the piano chimes a tolling tribute to Mr. Brain

reminiscent of Big Ben, an allusion to Brain’s English nationality. 143

Frequent use of musical quotation, both from his own works and from the works of

others. Poulenc’s late flute sonata quotes from his opera Dialogues des Carmélites

(1953), written only three years earlier. Moreover, many of his works bear dedications to

his friends and acquaintances, and related quotations and other relationships are often

forthcoming within the music. Such is the case in the song cycle La Fraîcheur et le Feu

(1950), which is dedicated to Stravinsky and borrows the tempo and harmonic plan of the

final cadence in the latter’s Serenade in A for piano. 144

Although collectively the above traits do not characterize any particular

composer’s works, individually they describe various elements found in the music of

Poulenc’s favorite composers: Monteverdi, Mozart, Chopin, Stravinsky, Debussy,

Chabrier, Bartok. Poulenc characterized himself as a composer who did not create a new

syntax but rather employed known elements in a new way. Some other composers

Poulenc classified in that category included Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, 145 and his bridge

partner, Prokofiev. 146 In a 1942 letter to a friend Poulenc wrote:

143
Ivry, 195.
144
Daniel, 276.
145
Orledge, 32.
146
Poulenc/Audel, 121.

72
 I am well aware that I am not the kind of musician who makes harmonic
innovations, like Igor [Stravinsky], Ravel, or Debussy, but I do think there is a
place for new music that is content with using other people’s chords. Was this not
the case with Mozart and with Schubert? And in any case, with time, the
personality of my harmonic style will become evident. Was not Ravel long
regarded as nothing more than a minor figure [petit maître] and imitator of
Debussy? 147

A Feminist Analysis of Poulenc’s Oboe Sonata

The Sonata for oboe and piano (1962) was Poulenc’s last completed work. Oboist

and musicologist Carol Padgham Albrecht situates Poulenc during the summer of 1962:

an active, successful composer who was enjoying recognition in both Europe and the

United States. Poulenc mentions in a letter to his friend Pierre Bernac, the baritone with

whom he concertized for so many years, that he was turning his attention to woodwinds.

He had written both his immediately successful flute sonata, “closely allied to Debussy’s

work in this genre,” and his Elégie for horn and piano in 1957. Poulenc described the

flute sonata as “simple but subtle, and the harmony reminds one of Sister Constance

[character in Dialogues des Carmélites].” 148 In 1959 he began a sonata for bassoon and

piano that was never completed. 149 Finally, in 1962, he wrote his much loved sonatas for

clarinet and oboe.

Burton classifies this constellation of wind pieces in a larger context of works that

he terms “post-Dialogues.” Poulenc’s opera Dialogues of the Carmélites (finished in

October 1955) constituted a landmark in the composer’s life. Burton’s extensive

exposition of the Dialogues context reveals that the composer believed his own life

147
Poulenc, Correspondence1915-1963, ed. Hélène de Wendel (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967).
Quoted in Terry Teachout, “Modernism with a Smile,” Commentary 105:4 (April 1998): 50.
148
Schmidt, 412.
149
Ibid., 416.

73
paralleled a theological theme of the opera: redemptive substitution through suffering.

Sister Constance, whose character portrays a virtuous, childlike faith, summarizes this

belief: “We die not for ourselves alone but for one another, or sometimes even instead of

each other.” 150 Burton’s quotations from Poulenc’s letters confirm that the composer

made connections between the Carmelite sisters’ deaths (by beheading) “as their part in

the mystery of ‘universal redemption’” 151 and the death of his lover, Lucien Roubert, on

the day Poulenc completed the opera. Poulenc wrote:

I have entrusted [Lucien] to my 16 blessed Carmelites: may they protect his final
hours since he has been so closely involved with their story. . . . I have just finished
the work, at his side, during the last days of his earthly life. . . . If Raymond
[Destouches] remains the secret of Les Mamelles and Figure humaine, Lucien is
certainly that of . . . Les Carmélites. 152

Both Burton and Ivry note Poulenc’s increasing obsession with death throughout

the course of his life. It is clear from his correspondence that he cherished his friends and

took it very hard when any of them passed away. Many friends were persecuted and

killed during the war, in Nazi death camps and during the French Resistance; the only

woman he ever loved died young; he anguished over Denis Brain’s premature death; he

lost his own parents while still a teenager. Burton writes, “If Poulenc’s work is haunted

by the omnipresence of violent, tragic or premature death, the reason is in large part to be

found in the holocaust of his personal friends.” 153

Poulenc dedicated the oboe sonata “à la mémoire de Serge Prokofieff,” his bridge

partner and piano idol. The oboe sonata’s unusual arrangement of movements and their
150
Burton, 95.
151
Ibid., 105.
152
Ibid., 102.
153
Burton, 91.

74
titles–outer slow movements titled Elégie and Déploration framing a lively Scherzo–one

of Prokofiev’s favorite genres–suggest a possible programmatic content. The structure

itself seems to create a frame for an homage to the great Russian composer and invites a

closer look to determine whether Poulenc wrote the dedication into the music.

Currently available contextual research does not show a direct relationship

between the actual time of the sonata’s writing (1962) and the fact that Poulenc dedicated

it to Prokofiev. They had not seen each other for almost thirty years earlier and had

completely lost contact. The two composers had shared a close friendship during

Prokofiev’s tenure in France, but when he returned to the Soviet Union all

correspondence ceased. However, the tenth anniversary of Prokofiev’s death (in March

1953) was approaching, and this event may have stirred up the memories that inspired the

dedication.

Poulenc scholar Keith Daniel, whose important research on Poulenc was first

published in 1980, does not make connections between the dedication to Prokofiev and

the composition. Daniel speculates that the Scherzo reflects Poulenc’s “lighthearted,

impertinent first period works.” 154 He is therefore puzzled by the Scherzo’s slow section,

“dominated by the piano [with] a Rachmaninoff-like late romantic flavor in its lyricism,

fullness, and sentimentality.” 155 He notes that this slow section deviates from a scherzo’s

normal configuration but then stops short. Because he is thinking in generalizations,

Daniel finds these profound feelings curious, since chamber music “had been one of his

more facile, secular . . . superficial, genres throughout his career.” 156

154
Daniel, 133.
155
Ibid., 131.

75
 Daniel’s statements underscore the need for feminist perspectives that focus on

individuality and contextuality. The analysis that follows will deconstruct some of his

ideas by attending to both traditional elements of analysis and other elements inspired by

feminism and the New Musicology. This analysis will begin with the overall arrangement

of movements and the dedication because they make such an immediate statement about

this sonata.

The Analysis

“One should begin with what is solidly established–the insights of theory and
analysis–building from this knowledge toward an understanding of ‘effect,’
‘expression,’ ‘content,’ ‘meaning’ . . . .” 157

Sonata for oboe and piano

I. Elégie (paisiblement)

II. Scherzo (très animé–le double plus lent–tempo I)

III. Déploration (très calme)

This analysis will examine all three movements, starting with the Scherzo (II),

then the Elégie (I), and finally the Déploration (III). I have chosen to begin with the

Scherzo since this was one of Prokofiev’s favorite genres. It thus seems logical to look

here for a relationship between the dedication and the music itself. It is interesting to note

that the Scherzo’s fast-slow-fast organization stands opposite to the sonata’s slow-fast-

slow configuration of movements. Thus, the Scherzo’s slow central section constitutes

156
Ibid., 132.
157
Fred Maus, “Music as Drama” in Music Theory Spectrum 10 (1988): 60.

76
the center of both the movement and the sonata, creating a double symmetry of overall

form: Elégie: slow Scherzo: fast-slow-fast Déploration: slow

This important placement further underscores the Scherzo’s importance to the sonata.

The second movement: Scherzo

In the Scherzo’s three-part form, rapid, rhythmic outer sections frame a slow,

lyrical middle section. The outer sections (mm. 1-100 and mm. 135-187) give us what we

would expect from a scherzo: light texture and rhythmic playfulness. Three motifs in the

oboe part, defined by highly characteristic rhythms and articulations, provide the melodic

material for the first forty measures. A motoric eighth-note pulse in the piano

accompaniment sweeps them along at lightning speed. Two more motifs appear later

(mm. 41-44 and mm. 45-48) and provide most of the melodic content for the remainder

of the section. Occasional quick meter changes and the variety of motives throw off the

motoric eighth notes just enough so that one is never quite sure where the music will turn

next. Laughing trills in the oboe at the end of both outer sections can easily be interpreted

to suggest the atmosphere during aggressive bridge games shared by Poulenc, Prokofiev,

and their international circle of bridge-playing friends. 158

The center section: core of the sonata. After such an opening, the unsuspecting

listener may be surprised when the mood turns introspective. It is not uncommon for a

scherzo to contain a trio that proceeds at a slightly slower tempo from that of its

158
Ivry uses the card-playing analogy to describe the opening of Poulenc’s Trio for piano, oboe
and bassoon (Francis Poulenc, 63). A fruitful study might explore whether Prokofiev influenced Poulenc’s
use of scherzo in his first period, and whether the scherzo in the oboe sonata reflects a memory of
Prokofiev’s piano playing and compositional style.

77
counterparts, but this is no trio. Poulenc has stepped way out of bounds. This section’s

unique character and central location–at the heart of the sonata–require special attention.

The section begins at rehearsal 8 (m. 101) with the directive le double plus lent

(twice as slow). 159 A three-measure transition (mm. 101-103) transports the listener from

the rollicking “A” section into a completely different realm. Dissonant harmonic dyads,

doubled in each hand, descend from the piano’s middle register into the very low range as

the dynamics grow ever softer. The dyads form a sequential pattern in which the

gradually expanding intervals alternate between consonance and dissonance, their upper

and lower notes moving chromatically in contrary motion. (Ex. 1). The descending,

growling dissonances create a mysterious atmosphere, causing the listener to wonder

what is happening. At the bottom the motion turns parallel, ending with two consonant

dyads (major thirds) that bring the introduction to a brighter, if lower and softer,

conclusion. It gradually slows to a stop (marked with a fermata) at the end of the third

measure. Emotionally, the music has transported the listener to a state of inner reflection.

Example 1. Chromatic descent to the core (mm. 101-103)

After the chromatic descent and fermata, the piano begins singing a melody that

exactly fits Marjorie Wharton’s description of Poulenc’s “curved tendrils” (Ex. 2). Its
159
Actually, it is three times as slow, since the eighth-note pulse equals the dotted-quarter-note
pulse from the preceding 6/8 section.

78
wavy contour includes ten of the twelve available tones in the chromatic scale, although

it sounds more tonal because of the underlying harmony and because its melodic

chromaticism acts like appoggiaturas. When the oboe answers with the consequent phrase

(m. 107), its melodic motive–also notable for its appoggiaturas–reaches upward

sequentially, as if hands were gesturing in praise. It culminates in a bright, beautiful F#

major triad. After the dark dissonances of the introduction, the effect is stunning–as

though the sun had come out. The regular, four-bar phrasing also serves to establish a

peaceful atmosphere.

Example 2. The singing melody (mm. 104-111)

The piano sings the melody’s first phrase again (Ex. 3, m. 112), and the oboe

begins to answer. However, the piano cuts off the oboe abruptly midway through its

phrase (Ex. 3, m. 117) and begins repeating the melody’s initial motive over and over in

loud, low, heavily accented octaves, as though it were mocking or even tyrannizing the

79
oboe. Above it, right hand piano chords pound out a harmonized, accented five-note

motive: Db-Eb-E-C-Eb. Poulenc has created a highly charged emotional outburst through

the interplay of these two distinctive motives. This happens right at the core, not only of

the movement, but of the entire sonata (Ex. 3, mm. 117-122).

Example 3. Interrupted singing and angry outburst (mm. 115-119)

The singing melody returns (m. 124, no example), and the oboe answers as

before. This time the melody is truncated; and its happy, bright intensity is lessened by a

somewhat calmer tonality. It segues into a final phrase whose melody is derived from the

angry, accented right hand piano motive. Despite its transformations–pianissimo

dynamics, even rhythm, legato style, and narrow range–the tritone emphasis remains;

80
thus, the anger continues to smolder. The section concludes in a mood similar to the one

with which it began: dark, soft, and questioning (Ex. 4).

Example 4. End of section (mm. 131-34)

The slow core of the Scherzo provides an excellent example of musical

narrativity. Its complexity offers a paradigm of Poulenc’s emotional writing; the beauty

and conflict paint a vivid picture of the human soul in its extremes. The formal plan and

corresponding emotional flow beg for further interpretation. Could the substitution of this

middle section for a traditional trio mirror his personal philosophy–recognizing and

valuing the rules of his religion but not applying them where they did not fit his lifestyle?

Or could the melody’s transformation from a beautiful song into a mocking tirade signify

anger at the core of his being–anger at death, with which he had been obsessed for many

years? The manner in which Poulenc contrasts complex, dissonant sonorities and whole

areas of dissonance with sudden consonances and tonal areas suggests such internal

conflict. Certainly, the writing could represent both anger and rebellion.

Finally, the psychological and spiritual questions posed in this inner core provide

a possible alternative interpretation of the Scherzo’s fast outer sections. The clue to this

81
interpretation emerges from the quartal harmony on which the pianos’ accompanimental,

motoric rhythm is based.

Example 5. Quartal harmony in piano accompaniment

Pianists often perform this section in a detached manner that disguises its harmonic

underpinnings. However, Poulenc’s well-documented preference for much pedal and the

presence of slurs over groups of two and three notes suggest a legato rather than staccato

style. The score indicates neither pedal nor staccato markings, so a performance decision

must be made. When pedaled, the quartal harmonies become much more noticeable, and

one can then recognize the distinctive sound of pealing bells to which the oboe dances

joyfully. The outer parts thus offer an emotional counterpart to the interiority of the

middle section of the movement, and the movement gains coherence and unity.

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The first movement: Elégie

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines “elegy” as a

poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person. In music, it refers

to a composition that is melancholy or pensive in tone. 160 Thus, the plaintive,

monophonic opening of Poulenc’s Sonata for oboe and piano could not be better suited

to its descriptive title.

I have attempted to analyze this first movement of Poulenc’s oboe sonata before,

using traditional theoretical tools. I looked for at least some semblance of a typical first

movement sonata structure, analyzed themes, and tied them to underlying harmonic

structures. I looked for identifiable harmonic progressions leading to conclusive

cadences, and for an organizational structure that would at least suggest general sonata

characteristics. Since, at the time, I was working with pre-formed expectations, I felt

obliged to squeeze the first movement into sonata-allegro form. It was an unsatisfactory

experience. I realized that something was out of the ordinary but did not understand why.

Elaine Keillor, in “Are We Really ‘Minorish?,’” writes:

Feminist analyses of works by female composers, and by homosexuals, has on

occasion revealed differences in the handling of structures, textures, etc., from the
norm. In some cases these were works that had been formerly considered defective,
even effeminate under the predominant analytical approaches prior to
deconstruction and feminist theories. 161

160
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin
Company, 2000. http://www.bartleby.com/61/40/E0084000.html. (Accessed April 21, 2006.)
161
Elaine Keillor, “Are We Really ‘Minorish?’” in With a Song in her Heart: A Celebration of
Canadian Women Composers, ed. Janice Drakich et al. (Windsor, ONT: University of Windsor, 1995), 65.
Similar observations appear in Marcia Citron’s analysis of Cécile Chaminade’s piano sonata in Gender and
the Musical Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and in Liane Curtis’s discussion of the
work of Rebecca Clarke in “Rebecca Clarke: Sonata Form Questions of Gender and Genre,” Musical
Quarterly 81 (1997): 393-429.

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Might Poulenc’s oboe sonata fit this description? I expect that feminist music theory and

explorations into New Musicology will shed light on this composition that has long

mystified me, starting with its first four notes.

These first four notes, floating high in the oboe’s range, suggest from the

beginning that something is out of the ordinary (Ex. 6). They define the key of G minor

(D-Bb-Eb-F#, scale degrees 5, 3, 6, #7), but they never state the tonic. Their order, range,

and monophonic citation seem like some sort of call or cry. It was their plaintive,

questioning call that initially drew me into this project. As a feminist theorist, I imagine

that they are not calling me to come explore the key of G minor. What else might they be

saying?

Example 6. Monophonic oboe introduction (mm. 1-2)

The opening section (mm. 1-21). The oboe’s opening monophonic cry segues into a

peaceful soliloquy, accompanied by the piano. In the first phrase (Ex. 7, mm. 3-10) an

eighth-note pulse beats softly and regularly underneath a gently curving melody in the

oboe. The melody begins with narrow circles, curving around in a relatively low range of

the oboe. Its amplitude then widens and sweeps up to a high Bb5. Meanwhile, the

dynamics require molto decrescendo. The piano echoes the oboe’s opening motive at the

end of the phrase, as though it were nodding agreement, or at least understanding.

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Example 7. The first phrase (oboe part, mm. 3-10)

All is not as peaceful as it seems. An underlying tension creates a sense of

questioning and restlessness. The curving melodic tendrils dissolve in complex, dissonant

chords. Pedal points try to direct a tonal flow, but the restless harmonies above do not

cooperate. Instead, the more the underlying tonality tries to stabilize, the less the surface

harmony conforms.

In the second phrase (Ex. 8, mm. 11-16) the oboe’s melody sweeps upward with

an arpeggiated, inverted major seventh chord, then winds its way back down to the F# on

which the phrase began, creating an arc. The end of the melody’s arc coincides with an

A# diminished seventh chord over an A natural octave in the bass (m. 14), forming a

harsh dissonance before the phrase ends on a D major seventh chord (m. 16). Symmetry

and conflict thus run side by side. At the close of the phrase, the oboe and piano recall the

narrow, circling motive from the first phrase (mm. 15-16).

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Example 8. Second phrase, mm. 10-16 (continued on next page)

The third and final phrase of the first section (Example 9, mm. 17-21)

incorporates the narrow, circular motive from the first phrase into the middle of its

winding, angular melody (m. 19). The phrase dissolves into ever darker colors by way of

sliding chromaticism (mm. 20-21) fleshed out through, first, a major seventh chord, then

a major-minor seventh, and finally an unidentifiable dissonance. In the oboe part a

chromatic slide acting like an appoggiatura–for centuries a musical symbol of sadness–

accompanies the final two piano chords. 162

162
The sonorities here are such that it is not possible to state that the oboe’s chromatic slide is a
true appoggiatura. This contributes to the sense of enigma.

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Example 9. Third phrase (mm. 17- 21)

The second section (mm. 22-47). If one absolutely must identify sections of sonata-

allegro form, the previous section would be the exposition and the next section (mm. 22-

47) the development. The melody loosely combines and explores melodic ideas from the

first section, and the underlying tonality migrates in a development-like way (falling fifth

sequences of bass notes, for example). Chord colors provide evocative suggestions. In

m. 22 and following, upward-sweeping arpeggiated major seventh chords trade

continuously back and forth between the piano and the oboe, creating a sea of musical

sensation 163 (Ex. 10).The repeated upward gestures suggest a physical object in motion,

such as a water fountain, or as human hands reaching repeatedly upward. These

arpeggiated chords are again arranged in third inversion (with the seventh on the bottom,

as in the second phrase) so that the smallest interval comes first, suggesting that the

gesture grows wider as it reaches higher. The upward sweeping ends with an unresolved

dissonance enhanced by a chromatic appoggiatura similar to that of m. 21 (see Ex. 9

above).

163
This section sounds very much like Debussy.

87
Example 10. Upwardly sweeping arpeggios (mm. 22-29). This pattern continues through m. 33

At this point a new theme characterized by a narrow, repetitive, circular motive

enters. This theme differs from the opening one (Ex. 7) particularly because it introduces

some rhythmic unevenness for the first time. A thinly disguised, sliding chromatic motion

in the piano’s left hand undercuts the otherwise stable tonality (Ex. 11, tenuto notes).

Example 11. New circular theme and angular counterpart (mm. 36-39). The passage includes mm. 34-47

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 In the second half of the phrase the contour in both oboe and piano widens, the

motion becomes disjunct, and the tonality destabilizes completely. This odd juxtaposition

of contrasting two-measure groupings repeats, and the intensity heightens by way of

dynamics and shifting tonal undercurrents (mm. 42-47). In m. 44 the dynamics grow

from pianissimo to forte over a sliding C/C#, culminating in a bright F# major triad

(Ex. 12, m. 46), and then crashing into unresolved dissonance (Ex. 12, m. 47).

Example 12. Bright F# chord and dissonant crash (mm. 46-47)

Climax or Crisis? (Ex. 13, mm. 48-63). At this point chaos breaks out (m. 48). The

melody’s curvy tendrils straighten, becoming linear scales and arpeggios that march up

and down forcefully through the oboe’s full register. The piano’s bass line growls on

pedal points in the extreme low register while the right hand hammers out pulsating

eighth-note chords voiced with sinister augmented seconds in the top voice. Above it the

oboe ascends to a screeching pinnacle on E6 via decorated arpeggios in a double-dotted,

jerky rhythm, subsequently plummeting downward on an E minor scale and landing

finally on its leading tone, D-sharp. Again it screeches upward to a D6 and plummets

downward on a D minor scale to its leading tone, C-sharp.

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Example 13. Crisis (mm. 48-53). The hidden Dies irae notes are circled.

Poulenc gives a concrete clue to musical significance by placing accent marks

over the four notes that mark the registral extremes of the oboe part (Example 13, above,

circled notes: F4-E6-F4-D6). Although the four notes are separated physically both by

musical space and by registration, they spell out the first four notes of the Dies irae (the

Sequence found in the Requiem Mass) in the Catholic liturgy. This is not a coincidence.

The accented notes mark registral extremes and are the only accented notes in the

section. 164 They employ the same notes as the Dies irae, except for the octave

displacements. The fact that they are separated from each other can be interpreted to have

significance in its own right. The hidden Dies irae is incoherent, obscure, displaced, and

164
Looking at registral extremities is a technique used in pitch-class set analysis.

90
incomplete–all words that could describe aspects of Poulenc’s life, from religious and

sexual duality to his constant pain over the loss of so many friends and loved ones.

Example 13. Dies irae melody 165

The measures immediately following the hidden Dies irae are marked très doux

(very soft, gentle). Pianissimo dynamics and dissonant intervals create a somber mood.

The contrapuntal texture contrasts sharply with homophonic texture in the sections

framing it. It seems that two voices are quietly trying to work out the conflict, but they

are unsuccessful; the conversation closes with a descending double chromatic

appoggiatura in the piano (Ex. 14).

Example 14. Quiet conversation (mm. 54-59)

165
John Caldwell and Malcolm Boyd: ‘Dies irae’, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed
14 May 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu>

91
 The quiet conversation does not last long. During the next four measures

(Ex. 15, mm. 60-63) the oboe shouts angrily, sliding down chromatically while the piano

pounds out minor and diminished chords. The syncopated rhythms offset each other,

tossing the listener around in angry jolts.

Example 15. Angry, downward sliding oboe and pounding piano (mm. 60-63)

Transition, return, and ending (m. 64 to the end). An eerie calm floats through the

piano’s even rhythms and chords that quietly sound a diminished triad in the next eight

measures (Ex. 16, mm. 64-71). Linearly, the accented right hand upper notes on beat

three of each measure ring out the same kind of chromatic sliding that signaled the

approach to the crisis (Ex. 11, mm. 35, 37, above). Meanwhile, the oboe circles tightly at

first and then opens into a larger circle that embraces the piano. Together they create a

continuous, circular melody whose contour and motivic content refer to the second

phrase (see Ex. 8, mm 11-12, above). Underneath, the piano left hand also circles in

minor seconds above and below A2. The circular motions and widening contours suggest

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a troubled soul (as shown by the dissonances) gradually opening itself in prayer. The soft

voices indeed finally restore equilibrium, and the music returns to its first state.

Example 16. Eerie calm and circular prayer (mm. 64-71)

One might think that, finally, the music is heading toward resolution with the

return to the opening themes–the expected outcome of a sonata-allegro movement as it

heads toward its close. However, these opening themes last only a short while (mm. 72-

83, no example); the circular opening melody and the upward sweeping seventh chords

return, but in shortened versions. Afterward, though, everything begins to become more

and more fragmented and broken apart. Rather than moving toward resolution, the

tensions increase as the movement closes. The oboe whispers briefly and somewhat

incoherently (Ex. 18, m. 84), but then launches into an angry, downward chromatic slide

(Ex. 18, mm. 85-87). The piano’s syncopated left hand creates further imbalance.

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Example 18. Whisper, followed by downward chromatic slide (mm. 84-87)

Soft, enigmatic piano chords are then answered by a subdued, cringing oboe (Ex. 19).

Example 19. Enigmatic piano chords and cringing oboe (mm. 88-89)

As the movement closes, the piano circles on high, dissonant chords. The final

chord, sounding the highest of all, is answered by three very low, descending notes in the

left hand; and the entire complex, unresolved sonority, left to ring (lâchez et laissez

vibrer), ends the movement as enigmatically as it began (Ex. 19).

Example 19. Unresolved ending (mm. 90-end)

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The final movement: Déploration

A deploration is a poem, or musical setting of a poem, lamenting someone’s

death. The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music defines “deploration” as

follows:

Term used for late medieval and early Renaissance compositions inspired by a
composer’s death. Many center on Ockeghem and Josquin; they commonly use the
Phrygian mode. 166

Keith Daniel quotes a 1962 letter to Pierre Bernac in which Poulenc describes the

final movement as “a sort of liturgical chant.” Daniel writes, “In this light, one can view

the ‘Déploration’ as Poulenc’s final statement to the world: tender, deeply religious,

perhaps accepting his coming death peacefully.” 167 This last conjecture may not be the

case, since Poulenc died suddenly several months after he completed the oboe sonata; he

even had social plans for the day he died. Nevertheless, Daniel’s observation that the

movement conveys Poulenc’s religious style–with its “soft, gentle, chordal” opening,

open fifths, narrow, winding melody, and “quasi-modal melodic line”–holds up under

closer scrutiny. 168 Daniel also points out that the Elégie and the Déploration share

melodic material.

Changing meters in the Déploration direct the flowing melody in a manner that

emulates the unmeasured quality of chant. The primary organizational tone is A-flat, and

much of the movement is written in A-flat minor, although there is no key signature and,

166
The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York and London:
Norton, 1994), 18.
167
Daniel, 131-32.
168
Ibid., 133.

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as Daniel notes, the harmony is both modal and quite dissonant. Dynamic extremes,

registral extremes, and much repetition also characterize the writing in this movement. 169

This lament almost certainly seems to have been written in honor of Prokofiev. In light of

the discoveries from feminist analysis and interpretation of the first two movements,

however, it seems likely that further exploration will reveal even greater depth.

Close attention to performance instructions reveals associations that suggest not

both religious references and a physical space: a cathedral. The movement, marked très

calme with the quarter note at 56 beats per minute, begins with a modal, pianissimo piano

introduction (Ex. 20, mm. 1-5) that, together with the dark tonality, create a hushed

atmosphere, as though one had just stepped inside the door of a cathedral. The unbroken

piano pedal (sans changer) over three measures blurs the sound of the vocally conceived

melody, as if in a large, echoing room. A chiming bell in the final two measures of the

introduction completes the scene. This effect is especially obvious if one truly observes

both the pedal marking and the sudden dynamic shift from pianissimo to mezzo-forte.

Example 20. Opening of Déploration (mm. 1-5)

In the next section (Ex. 21, mm. 6-26) Poulenc paints an instrumental picture of

choral singing. The slight melodic variations in the many repetitions emulate those that

169
Recall Maus’s admonition to start with “what is solidly established” before proceeding further.

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would naturally occur with changing texts sung to the same chant melody in liturgical

music. The extremes of the oboe’s register imply higher and lower voices, and terraced

dynamics imply soloists and choirs answering each other in this emulation of responsorial

singing. Underneath the oboe, the piano sustains slow-moving chords preceded by grace

notes sounding the same pitches, giving the effect of reverberation inside this great space.

Example 21. Responsorial singing and footfalls (mm. 6-9. The passage continues to m. 26)

The scene changes (Ex. 22, m. 27f), but the echoing footfalls captured musically

by the piano’s grace notes in the previous section continue. Here, however, the grace

notes precede low, dissonant seventh dyads. The singers are gone, and the “eerie calm”

suggesting prayer in the first movement (Ex. 16) returns, pianississimo and monotone. 170

(Ex. 22). The narrow, circular prayer-melody begins softly. As the melody continues,

however, it starts a chromatic ascent intensified by a dramatic crescendo and a slightly

faster tempo (presser un peu, m. 33). At the top, the full spectrum of sound opens up

(Ex. 22, m. 35).

170
Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia, 532. Monotone is defined as “a single unvaried tone, or a
succession of sounds at the same pitch.” Liturgical texts are often recited “in monotone.”

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Example 22. Eerie calm, intense prayer (mm. 27-36. The passage continues through m. 42)

The chant-like melody and responsorial style return in resounding splendor. Glorious, full

piano chords (Ex. 22, mm. 35-36, above) are answered softly and questioningly by the

oboe, and the sequence then repeats.

In the following section the oboe and piano recall the narrow, circular melody

from the Elégie (Ex. 11) that introduced an uneven rhythm for the first time and led the

way to the crisis. It is as though they are whispering about something that happened

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earlier. The oboe brings it up and the piano answers (Ex. 23). There is no resolution,

though; the phrase ends softly and dissonantly.

Example 23 (mm. 43-49)

The opening chant returns briefly (mm. 50-53, no example), followed by a final

section that Daniel calls a “dirge-like coda” 171 (Ex. 24). The repetitive, circular,

chromatically conceived melody alternates between piano and oboe over gently pulsating

eighth-note dyads that form a minor third above A-flat. At the very end (mm. 60f) the

pianist holds down the damper pedal for seven measures, creating the same type of

blurry, teary effect found at the end of the Elégie. The final three chords toll a distant

death bell, and the movement ends softly and enigmatically.

171
Daniel, 133.

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Example 24. Coda (mm. 58-end)

Conclusions and Results of Feminist Analysis

In this section I will review the general characteristics of Poulenc’s music

(outlined at the beginning of this chapter) in light of the specific observations drawn from

my own analysis of the oboe sonata. I will also draw attention to aspects of the music that

compare with feminist definitions of women’s music, and I will comment on the

processes in my own work that helped me find a new way of approaching this analysis. I

have ordered the elements to facilitate the flow of my own ideas.

Melodic elements. Melody is not often where an analysis usually starts. As David Lewin

suggests, analyses often start with harmony and with the bass line. This fact is, in itself,

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evidence of a gendered social structure in music scholarship. 172 Weaning myself from the

notion that the bass should be the focal part of my analysis caused me to look more

closely at the melodies. I traced the melodies on a sheet of paper and performed them in

the air with my hands, finding at once Marjorie Wharton’s “curved tendrils.” The two

physical exercises brought to my attention the sonata’s many circular melodic designs

and interesting contours. Looking at the amplitudes that appeared as I sketched the

melodies, I realized the contrast between the narrow, circular melodies and the curving-

but-not-circular melodies. This contrast was apparent throughout the Elégie and the

Déploration as well as in the middle section of the Scherzo. It was apparent that this was

an element within an element and a potential sign of musical signification. When I

identified the big differences between all the circular melodies and the straight lines of

the crisis in the Elégie I was certain that the melodic writing would present more clues to

extra-musical signification. The hidden Dies irae in the midst of the crisis and the

abundant chromatic appoggiaturas threaded throughout the piece strengthened my belief

that there was symbolism encoded in the music.

Amalgamation of music with other arts. Part of the inspiration for physically tracing

melodies came from my knowledge of Poulenc’s love for art, and his belief in

amalgamation of the arts, discovered through my contextual research. Carl B. Schmidt’s

chapter “Distilling essences: Poulenc and Matisse” 173 provided much food for thought

along these lines. Schmidt describes how Matisse’s distillation process influenced

172
David Lewin, “Women’s Voices and the Fundamental Bass,” Journal of Musicology 10:4
(1992): 464-82.
173
“Distilling essences: Poulenc and Matisse,” in Buckland and Chimènes, Francis Poulenc,
199-209.

101
Poulenc’s piano accompaniments in his songs, notably Cinq poèmes de Paul Eluard

(1935) and Banalités (1940). Schmidt quotes a letter from Poulenc to Robert Bernard:

“Taking my inspiration from the drawings of Matisse, I am trying to go from the complex

to the simple line.” Schmidt continues, “These glimpses of Poulenc influenced by the

visual techniques of a fellow artist offer us some idea of his thinking as he wrote

mélodies” (songs). 174 Obviously, Poulenc applied this distilled accompanimental

technique in the oboe sonata. By extension, I realized that the melodies in the oboe sonata

supported by this type of accompaniment were probably conceived as songs, and the

oboist is the singer. This vocally conceived melody-and-accompaniment texture contrasts

sharply with other writing in the sonata that is definitely not vocally oriented. That

realization in turn brought up other issues, such as the relationship of the two instruments

throughout the sonata. In another comment on visual aspects of Poulenc’s music, Ivry’s

description of Quatre Motets pour un temps de Noël as highly visual, “the product of a

composer who has studied hundreds of religious paintings,” 175 influenced my thoughts

about the cathedral scene in Déploration.

Emotion as a viable musical element. Of the several elements in this sonata that could be

viewed as characteristic of feminine writing, emotion and enigma stand out above the

rest. The whole middle section of the Scherzo epitomizes emotion in music. The lyrical

melody’s contours step up and then dip way down, over and over, in angular intervals–

generally sixths or sevenths. Chromatic appoggiaturas slide upward and downward.

Extreme contrasts in dynamics and articulation interrupt the singing, lyrical melody in an

174
Ibid.
175
Ivry, 162.

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angry tirade. The central location of this emotional writing with its overt contrasts

indicates musical signification that probably goes deeper than Poulenc’s personal feelings

for Prokofiev. 176 It reaches into the very core of a soul whose struggles with depression

play havoc with his ability to enjoy life to the fullest.

The enigmatic endings of both the Elégie and the Déploration also can be

categorized as feminine, as opposed to traditional sonatas that reach tonal resolution. The

fact that these movements form the outer boundaries of the sonata makes their lack of

resolution even more poignant and more significant. Their dark, heavy dissonances stand

in sharp contrast to the Scherzo’s loud, robust ending.

Lush harmonies and creation of musical moods that reflect the subject; emotional

subjects. Complex chords create a rich palette of musical colors, often exploring hues and

shades rather than painting large swathes of a single color. Debussy’s influence is readily

apparent in this colorful music that shares the evocative nature and power of

impressionism.

Impressionism does not describe the harmonic make up of the entire sonata,

however. Poulenc begins the sonata with characteristic dense harmony (seventh and ninth

chords); therefore, it becomes a reference from which there are notable departures, for

instance, the crisis in the Elégie. The Scherzo’s sparse texture in its outer sections sets it

apart, and in the Scherzo’s slow central section the singing melody is harmonized mostly

with triads, as compared to the Elégie’s dense seventh and ninth chords. When the

conflict arises, its intense dissonances are more noticeable and more dramatic because of

176
Although this cannot be ruled out, currently available research does not indicate that the two
shared a sexual relationship, for example.

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the sudden shift from the singing melody’s major triads. The Déploration’s harmonic

makeup could be classified as impressionistic, but its primarily modal harmony sets it

apart from the Elégie. The distinctive, obviously intentional harmonic languages among

the three movements provide important clues to potential musical signification.

Formal organization used as a programmatic tool rather than as a convention. Theorist

Joseph N. Straus writes that twentieth-century composers used the sonata (which he

describes as a paradigm of tonal music and the epitome of common practice tonality) to

“come to terms with their musical heritage.” He writes:

It is the scene of an artistic struggle in which later composers attempt to appropriate

for themselves an exemplary element of an earlier style, [and] to confront and
master their predecessor on the predecessors’ home ground. . . . The most
interesting twentieth-century sonatas are those that struggle most profoundly with
the tradition, neither ignoring the structural implications of the form nor vainly
attempting to regain a period of lost innocence.” 177

Straus suggests that composers can 1) immobilize the form with large-scale symmetries;

2) subvert the form’s traditional bent toward reconciliation; and/or 3) set in motion

musical forces that strain against the form. 178

Poulenc’s oboe sonata provides an excellent example of all of the above traits, as

evidenced by the descriptive analysis in this chapter: the double symmetry of overall

form, the lack of resolution at the ends of the Elégie and Déploration, and the conflicts

staged in the Elégie and Scherzo. The fact that Poulenc ignores most if not all of the

typical sonata conventions is not even as interesting as the fact that he chose this

particular medium to express such profound, conflicting emotions. This sonata achieves

177
Joseph N. Straus, Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal
Tradition (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1990), 96.
178
Ibid.

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with a simple oboe/piano combination what most composers do with orchestral colors, or

with an opera, where there are words and characters. In that regard, like many of the

forward-looking twentieth-century composers and like many women composers, Poulenc

was finding ways to express profound emotions with smaller forces and fewer notes.

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 CONCLUSION

FINDING JOUISSANCE AS A WOMAN

PERFORMER/THEORIST

In the almost forty years since Dr. Cone’s book on musical form and musical

performance was published, an explosion of new ideas has transformed and brought new

energy to the discipline of music theory. Many of these ideas have surfaced primarily

through the work of feminist theorists, as demonstrated in this thesis. Musical

representation, ideas about the body and its different roles in a person’s life, acceptance

of multiple interpretations, and interdisciplinary approaches stand out among the myriad

possibilities evoked by the term feminist music theory.

Analyses by feminist theorists inspired me to consider alternative ways of

approaching this sonata and challenged me to find my own method of conveying the

results. Since I was working from a dual perspective, as both analyst and performer, I

realized that inspiration from the physical aspects of feminist theory could particularly

help make this connection from the printed score to the embodied performance.

The physical and interdisciplinary aspects of feminist research provided some of

the most helpful insights into my work on the Poulenc oboe sonata. Carl Schmidt’s article

on Poulenc and Matisse 179 and Marjorie Wharton’s phrase “curved tendrils” inspired me

to trace the melodic lines on paper, as if I were an artist sketching out my subject. After I

traced the notes in the Elegie’s opening section I then performed the phrase from my

sketch. This exercise immediately helped my conception of the melody. Performing these

linear contours felt very different from performing motives and phrases. I felt a physical

179
Carl B. Schmidt, “Distilling essences: Poulenc and Matisse,” in Sidney Buckland and Myriam
Chimènes, Francis Poulenc: Music, Art, and Literature (Aldershot; and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999),
199-209.

106
connection with the music that I had not previously experienced and was able to find a

performance center not limited by the oboe, by recordings, or by analysis. In addition,

seeing the curvy contours on a separate page brought to my attention their differing

amplitudes and the way in which Poulenc began with a narrow amplitude and then

stretched it way up toward the end of the phrase. It also brought attention to the fact that

the melody changed from curvy to linear at the Elégie’s crisis.

Analyses by Susan McClary, Fred Maus and Robin Wallace (among others)

focusing on drama and agency in music, and Ruth Solie’s objection to the idea of

absolute music, led me to look not just for a subject but also for dramatic narrative.

McClary’s writings, for example, helped me identify the piano’s role as terrorist in the

middle of the Scherzo. Maus’s writings on the linear unfolding of dramatic narrative

through musical time and Wallace’s work on psychology and gender in nineteenth-

century sonatas helped me identify the emotional and psychological elements. 180 I

eventually wrote a very personal program that grew out of my own contextuality and that

defined my conception of this sonata’s meaning. 181

Feminist music theory also instructed me to look for binary oppositions. As I

moved through the music, examining each musical element separately and then looking

at how the elements worked together, binaries–and deconstructions of binaries–became

more and more apparent. At times the elements conflict; at other times they coexit. A

performer’s conscious attention to the elements and their interactions can bring out the

dramatic aspects that form the real life of this composition.

180
Robin Wallace, “Myth, Gender, and Musical Meaning: The Magic Flute, Beethoven, and 19th
Century Sonata Form Revisited,” The Journal of Musicological Research, 19:1 (2000), 1-25.
181
I have not included that program in this thesis but am willing to share it upon request.

107
 My choice of a descriptive, metaphorical style of analysis was directly influenced

by Marianne Kielian-Gilbert’s analysis of Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano.

In her analysis, subtitled “Feminine spaces and metaphors of reading,” Kielian-Gilbert

employs metaphors and descriptive language, along with traditional music terminology

and contextual explanations. Kielian-Gilbert writes in the introduction to her analysis:

Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano creates and transforms feminine
spaces of negotiation of both the power and illusion of solo expression. . . .
Clarke’s poet takes up her lute, imbibing the “wine of youth” and declaring
freedom from constraints–in my story, the binaries and singular norms, the
assumptions and marginality of her gender. Her wine, a metaphor for release,
vision, and possibility, . . . engender[s] an intensity of experience . . . that partakes
of both ecstasy and pain, empowerment and numbness. 182

Kielian-Gilbert incorporates not only description but also poetry (Sylvia Plath, “Poppies

in October”) and traditional-looking graphs. Her conclusions, based on her feminist

reading of this work, defy review Herbert Peyser, who wrote after its first public

performance that the work was well written and vehemently sentimental but

“ingratiatingly superficial.” 183

***

Feminist power is directly related to feminine jouissance–the unbridled pleasure

of a woman’s sexuality or feminine pleasure, as discussed by Renée Cox Lorraine in

Women and Music. 184 Is it possible that jouissance is ultimately the source of a woman’s

best, most authentic musical performance? The process of this thesis has brought me to

182
Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, “On Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata for Viola and Piano: Feminine spaces
and metaphors of reading,” in Audible T races: Gender, Identity, and Music (Zurich and Los Angeles:
Carciofoli, 1999), 71-72.
183
Ibid., 106.
184
Renée Cox Lorraine, “Recovering Jouissance: Jeminist Aesthetics and Music,” in Women and
Music: A History, 2nd ed., ed. Karin Pendle (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
2001), 3-18.

108
the conclusion that indeed, finding and unleashing that powerful pleasure in making

music is the key to my own best performance. Moreover, the pleasure extends past

performance to analysis, to teaching, and to many other aspects of life. Through her

jouissance a woman can find the power to form and celebrate her own opinions–not

because they are right for everyone, but because they are uniquely hers. The work of this

thesis opened my ears and my mind in a way that allowed me to begin trusting in and

celebrating my own musical instincts. This, in the final analysis, is the most valuable

work of all.

109
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