{"id":1317,"date":"2022-04-19T00:09:06","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T05:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2022-04-19T00:09:06","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T05:09:06","slug":"lgbt-backstories-in-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2022\/04\/19\/lgbt-backstories-in-music\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBT Backstories in Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

The papers by Samuel Dorf and Christopher Moore examine the influence of sexuality on the music of Eric Satie and Francis Poulenc, respectively. The former article focuses on the sexuality of Winaretta Singer-Polignac more so than that of Satie. Dorf uncovers some details about her love life, but emphasizes Polignac’s efforts to hide her sexuality– and how this is manifested in Satie’s Socrates.<\/em>\u00a0For example,\u00a0Polignac distanced herself from more openly lesbian socialites like Natalie Barney, even if they had many mutual friends (and lovers).1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Dorf contrasts Polignac’s “stoic” and “neoclassical” use of ancient Greek culture in Socrates\u00a0<\/em>with Barney’s “sensualist orientalism” and the “decadent goings-on” in her garden around a statue of Sapphos.2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0For\u00a0Socrates, <\/em>Satie and Polignac removed all of the\u00a0sexual references from Plato’s texts, but Dorf argues that this may in fact open up space for the lesbian imagination, and connects this to Elizabeth Wood’s concept of Sapphonics.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Elizabeth Wood’s article is fascinating because it demonstrates the presence of a certain voice type that speaks to lesbian listeners. Wood demonstrates the existence of such a phenomenon with the fact that multiple female writers were inspired to create fiction novels based on “Sapphonic” opera singers such as Olive Fremstadt.4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The concept of Sapphonics strengthens Dorf’s argument in this way, that\u00a0Socrates\u00a0<\/em>enabled Polignac to connect with her friends in a way that both expressed yet concealed their sexuality.<\/p>\n

Moore’s paper examines Poulenc’s Les Biches\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Aubade\u00a0<\/em>through the lens of sexuality. Poulenc also attempted to conceal his sexuality, as was often necessary for the time, but Moore argues that Poulenc’s homosexuality is demonstrated in his music through the “camp” aesthetic. 5<\/sup><\/a> Moore analyzes the scenario of\u00a0Les Biches,\u00a0<\/em>in which the Woman in Blue is an androgynous, cross-dressed character.6<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Moore synthesizes the reactions of the critics, and argues that few understood the true intent of the character, which was to express Poulenc’s sexuality. 7<\/sup><\/a> However, this intent is concealed with other “conventions that strongly reinforce the conventional theme of heterosexual romantic desire”. 8<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Moore interprets specific parts of the music, which allows the reader to directly identify the connections of Poulenc’s music to Moore’s argument. Some of these interpretations are a stretch, however: Moore claims that the chords at rehearsal 60 of Les Biches\u00a0<\/em>represent the “character’s masculine aggression, motivated by jealousy, toward the corps de ballet attentively scrutinizing his seductive cross-dressing performance from the sidelines.”9<\/sup><\/a> This is purely speculation, and there is no outside proof corroborating this interpretation.<\/p>\n

Moore also over-analyzes Poulenc’s description of Aubade\u00a0<\/em>(a work including a solo piano and a solo dancer) as “Amphibious,” which I would interpret as referring to the cross-over between music and dance– but Moore writes, “the word aptly characterizes\u00a0Aubade’s\u00a0<\/em>ostensible function: that of theatrically representing Poulenc’s two worlds– the straight (dry) public world of the virtuoso pianist and the world of his unspeakable (wet) gay desire.” This extrapolates the meaning of Poulenc’s description to fit Moore’s narrative, but doesn’t really realistically hold up to what he meant.10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

These two articles do a great job of filling in the gaps of our knowledge about the sexualities of these important musicians and patrons. Some of the arguments are proof-texted, but for the most part Dorf and Moore make compelling cases for the impact of sexuality on these pieces.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/a>Samuel Dorf, \u201c\u2018\u00c9trange, n\u2019est-ce pas?\u2019 The Princesse Edmond de Polignac, Erik Satie\u2019s Socrate, and a Lesbian Aesthetic of Music?\u201d FLS: Queer Sexualities in French and Francophone Literature and Film 34 (2007), 94.<\/p>\n

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2<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 94-96<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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3<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 96-97<\/p>\n

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4<\/a> Elizabeth Wood, \u201cSapphonics,\u201d in <\/span>Queering the Pitch: The New Lesbian and Gay Musicology<\/span><\/i> (New York: Routledge, 2006), 33-39.<\/span><\/p>\n

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5<\/a> Christopher Moore, \u201cCamp in Francis Poulenc\u2019s Early Ballets,\u201d <\/span>Musical Quarterly<\/span><\/i> 95 (Summer-Fall 2012), 299-342.<\/span><\/p>\n

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6<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 308-315<\/p>\n

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7<\/a>Ibid., 308<\/p>\n

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8<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 307<\/p>\n

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9<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 314<\/p>\n

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10<\/a>\u00a0Ibid., 322<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The papers by Samuel Dorf and Christopher Moore examine the influence of sexuality on the music of Eric Satie and Francis Poulenc, respectively. The former article focuses on the sexuality of Winaretta Singer-Polignac more so than that of Satie. Dorf uncovers some details about her love life, but emphasizes Polignac’s efforts to hide her sexuality– […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4404,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}