CHOPIN AT THE BOUNDARIES by Jeffrey Kallberg ( 9780674127906 )

Item Details

Title:

CHOPIN AT THE BOUNDARIES
SEX, HISTORY AND MUSICAL GENRE

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£39.95
We currently do not stock this item, please contact the publisher directly for further information.

ISBN 10:

0674127900

ISBN 13:

9780674127906

Publisher:

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

1 April, 1996

Series:

Convergences: Inventories of the Present

Pages:

316

Description:

This work places Chopin in his native Polish and adopted French cultures and demonstrates the effects of these historical constructions on present experience. It examines the exoticism of Chopin and the way in which his work, written in "feminine" genres, crossed over the boundaries of gender.

Synopsis:

Chopin cuts a curious figure in contemporary culture. A Pole working among Frenchmen, he exudes exoticism even as he partakes of European tradition. A male composer who wrote in "feminine" genres like the nocturne for domestic settings such as the salon, he confuses our sense of the boundaries of gender. Central to our repertory, he nevertheless remains a marginalized figure. The complex and unsettling status of Chopin in our culture - what it means and how it came about - is Jeffrey Kallberg's subject in this book. Combining social history, literary theory, musicology and feminist thought, "Chopin at the Boundaries" situates Chopin's music historically within his native Polish and adopted French cultures and to demonstrate the effects of these historical constructions on present experience. "Raphaelesque", "an airy apparition", "small fairy voices sighing under silver bells" - these and other ethereal images were conferred on Chopin's music in his lifetime, all of them evoking notions of the feminine in the minds of contemporary listeners.Why this was - how Chopin, well before the late-19th century, came to be seen as a "woman's composer" - what this might have to do with Chopin's own somewhat marginal sexual identity, and what it can tell us about constructions of gender at the time are central concerns of this book. Kallberg also shows how the nocturne as a genre became freighted with ideological significance and, focusing on the Polonaise-Fantasy, the "last" Mazurka, and the Preludes, examines certain social constructions that should figure in our understanding of Chopin's compositional methods and purposes. Kallberg's approach to the composer reveals a new Chopin, one situated precisely where questions of gender open up into the very important question of genre.

Illustrations:

5 halftones, 30 musical examples, 4 diagrams

Publication:

Imprint:

Harvard University Press

Returns:

Non-returnable

Some other items by this author:

ABSOLUTE MUSIC AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING (HB)

ABSOLUTE MUSIC AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING (PB)

CHOPIN AT THE BOUNDARIES (PB)

EDWARD WOLFF (1816-1880) (HB)