Abstract

Outing the Music

The article focuses on two books related to music. "Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology," edited by Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood and Gary C. Thomas and "Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship," edited by Ruth A. Solie. Two recent collections of essays represent the cutting edge of the new musicology. Although at the moment a relatively, small group of musicologists, devote their work to these issues the two collections differ in critical subtlety and overall quality. "Queering the Pitch," is the first book to bring gay and lesbian studies to bear on art music. "Musicology and Difference," would have benefited from a more rigorous and selective editorial process, though there is much to recommend it. Ruth Solie begins with a straightforward discussion of recent theories of difference and what they offer to the study of music.