Queer Music, Queer Theory, Queer Music Theory

如果一个作曲家是酷儿，他们的音乐也是酷儿吗？上世纪90年代初，苏珊·麦克拉利提出这个问题的答案是肯定的。她进一步推进了梅纳德·所罗门的有争议的提议，即弗朗茨·舒伯特(Franz Schubert，1797-1828)可能是同性恋，她提出，对舒伯特音乐的分析(即对其内部工作原理的仔细研究)揭示了可能与他的同性恋身份有关的文体特征。保守的音乐爱好者对舒伯特是同性恋的想法感到震惊，更不用说他们最喜欢的舒伯特作品可能本质上也是同性恋了，他们更愿意将他独特的音乐能力归因于精神健康问题、性病，甚至是他丑陋的外表。然而，酷儿音乐学已经走出了衣柜，进入了学术的聚光灯下，关于舒伯特性取向的辩论甚至在主流媒体上被报道了。然而，“酷儿音乐分析”的概念在辩论中遭到了破坏：1993年，丽塔·斯泰布林全面驳斥了所罗门的传记研究，并断言证据实际上指向了舒伯特强烈的异性恋，这让麦克拉里关于舒伯特同性恋音乐风格的假说看起来岌岌可危。显然名誉扫地，对酷儿音乐的分析研究仍在继续，但知名度相对较低。(相比之下，流行音乐往往是性感的，有时是同性恋的，这种观点的争议性要小得多：比如鲍伊和普林斯。)自酷儿音乐学诞生以来的四分之一个世纪里，学术、文化和政治态度都发生了很大的变化。许多西方国家已经立法承认同性关系，就连普京总统也在2013年承认，俄罗斯最著名的作曲家柴可夫斯基很可能是同性恋(考虑到当年俄罗斯颁布了一项所谓的同性恋宣传法律，这对普京来说很不方便)。最近，人们对酷儿音乐分析重新产生了兴趣，现在应该重新评估早期酷儿音乐学术的工作和结论。事实上，“酷儿音乐”这个概念本身就是有争议的，也是不确定的。我们知道，有酷儿作曲家，他们的艺术意图可能与他们的酷儿身份有关。但他们的意图肯定不能仅仅归结为怪异？也许我们应该说的是奇特的创作策略，奇特的表现形式，奇特的“意义”，而不是“奇特的音乐”？那么，“酷儿”音乐有什么特别之处呢？它的奇特之处在哪里？对酷儿作曲家音乐的分析又能对我们的理解有什么帮助呢？这一奖学金(‘酷儿音乐，酷儿理论，酷儿音乐理论’)将允许大卫·布雷瑟顿博士带头重新激发关于酷儿音乐本质的辩论，并从音乐理论和分析的角度(即从音乐本身的特征和‘语言’的角度，而不是作曲家的性格特征)，在重新构思酷儿音乐的过程中发挥决定性的作用。本研究以舒伯特、柴可夫斯基、柯普朗、布里顿和芬尼斯等作曲家近两个世纪以来的作品为研究对象，探讨酷儿音乐学的兴起，并对这一领域的早期作品进行评论。然后，它将通过围绕酷儿理论学科的核心思想组织的几个音乐分析案例研究来质问“酷儿音乐”的概念。现代西方社会被一种支持异性关系和“正常”性别行为的“异性恋”话语所主导，这一观点尤其重要，因为它类似的音乐习俗，当被颠覆时，往往被可疑地解读为作曲家古怪的自传式证据。这个项目寻求更细致入微和更深思熟虑的替代方案，并试图将酷儿音乐学与人文科学中的其他方法结合起来。它的发现将在各种学术和公共论坛上发表。

If a composer is queer, is their music queer too? In the early 1990s Susan McClary proposed that the answer to this question was 'yes'. She furthered Maynard Solomon's controversial proposal that Franz Schubert (1797-1828) might have been gay by suggesting that analysis of Schubert's music (that is, close study of its inner-workings) revealed stylistic features that might be associated with his homosexuality. Conservative music-lovers were appalled at the idea of a gay Schubert, let alone that their favourite Schubert works might be intrinsically gay too, and they preferred to attribute his unique musical ability to mental health problems, venereal disease, or even his ugly appearance. Yet queer musicology had burst out of the closet and into the academic limelight, and the debate about Schubert's sexuality was even reported in the mainstream press. The notion of 'queer music analysis', however, was damaged during the debate: in 1993 Rita Steblin comprehensively rebutted Solomon's biographical research and asserted that the evidence in fact pointed towards Schubert's vigorous heterosexuality, which left McClary's hypothesis of Schubert's homosexual musical style looking precarious. Apparently discredited, research into the analysis of queer music continued, but with considerably less prominence. (By contrast, the idea that popular music is often sexual, and sometimes queer, has been far less controversial: consider Bowie and Prince, for example.) In the quarter-century since the birth of queer musicology, scholarship, and cultural and political attitudes have altered considerably. Many Western countries have introduced legislation to recognise same-sex relationships, and even President Putin acknowledged in 2013 that Tchaikovsky, Russia's most famous composer, was probably gay (inconvenient for Putin, given Russia's enactment of a so-called 'gay propaganda' law that year). Recently, there has been a renewed interest in queer music analysis, and a re-evaluation of the work and conclusions of earlier queer music scholarship is now due. Indeed, the very notion of 'queer music' is itself contestable and uncertain. We know that there are queer composers, whose artistic intentions may be related to their queer identity. But surely their intentions are not reducible to queerness alone? Perhaps rather than 'queer music' we should speak of queer creative strategies, queer forms of expression, queer 'meanings'? What, then, is 'queer' about queer music? Where does its queerness reside? And what can the analysis of queer composers' music contribute to our understanding? This Fellowship ('Queer Music, Queer Theory, Queer Music Theory') will allow Dr David Bretherton to take a lead in re-energising the debate about the nature of queer music, and to play a decisive role in the re-conceptualisation of queer music from a music-theoretical and -analytical perspective (that is, from the perspective of the features and 'language' of music itself, rather than of the character traits of its composers). Focusing on selected works from the last two centuries, by composers such as Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Copland, Britten and Finnissy, this research will explore the emergence of queer musicology and critique earlier work in this area. It will then interrogate the concept of 'queer music' through several music-analytical case studies organised around core ideas from the discipline of queer theory. The notion that modern Western society is dominated by a 'heteronormative' discourse favouring heterosexual relationships and 'normal' gender behaviours will be particularly important, because its analogue, musical convention, when subverted is often dubiously interpreted as autobiographical evidence of a composer's queerness. This project seeks more nuanced and thoughtful alternatives, and seeks to align queer musicology with other approaches in the humanities. Its findings will be reported in a variety of academic and public forums.