Research Catalog

Title

Sounding feminine : women's voices in British musical culture, 1780-1850 / David Kennerley.

Author

Kennerley, David, 1988-

Publication

• New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]
• ©2020

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 220 pages : illustrations, music, genealogical tables; 25 cm.

Summary

"This book examines the uses and meanings of women's voices in British society and musical culture between 1780 and 1850. As previous scholars have argued, during these decades patriarchal power increasingly came to rest upon a particular understanding of the essentially different nature of male and female physiology and psychology. As a result, this book contends, the female voice-believed to blend both physical and mental attributes-became central to maintaining, and challenging, gendered power structures. It argues that the varying ways women used their voices-the sounds that they made, as much as the words they spoke or sang-were understood by contemporaries as aural markers of different kinds of femininity. Consequently, contemporary divisions over feminine ideals were both expressed and contested through women's use of their voices and audiences' responses to them. Following an introduction that lays out the book's theoretical frameworks and main arguments, the first three chapters explore how contemporary responses to different styles of female vocality were shaped by class, religious and national discourses, through an exploration of conduct literature, letters, diaries, life-writing, and music criticism and reportage in newspapers and periodicals. Two case studies then extend the argument further through detailed analysis of the use and meaning of women's voices on the part of both amateur and professional female singers respectively. A closing epilogue draws together the book's major themes and discusses their implications for the gender history of this period"--

Series Statement

The new cultural history of music

Uniform Title

New cultural history of music.

Subject

• 1700-1899
• Women singers > Great Britain > History > 19th century
• Women singers > Great Britain > History > 18th century
• Music > Social aspects > History > Great Britain > 19th century
• Music > Social aspects > History > Great Britain > 18th century
• Singers > Great Britain > History
• Femininity in music
• Music > Social aspects
• Singers
• Women singers
• Great Britain

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-208) and index.

Contents

Introduction : Sounding feminine -- Instructing women's voices in conduct literature -- Encountering women's voices in letters, diaries, and life-writing -- Criticising women's voices in the musical press -- Dorothea Solly's musical world : Class, religion, and the cultivation of the female voice -- The lives and voices of professional female singers : three vignettes -- Epilogue : Voicing a new femininity.

Call Number

JME 21-315

ISBN

• 9780190097561
• 0190097566

LCCN

2019058433

OCLC

1135098027

Author

Kennerley, David, 1988- author.

Title

Sounding feminine : women's voices in British musical culture, 1780-1850 / David Kennerley.

Publisher

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Copyright Date

©2020

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

The new cultural history of music

New cultural history of music.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-208) and index.

Chronological Term

1700-1899

Other Form:

Online version: Kennerley, David, 1988- Sounding feminine New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. 9780190097585 (DLC) 2019058434

Research Call Number

JME 21-315