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

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

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 220 pages) : music Series New cultural history of music New cultural history of music. 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 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"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed on July 27, 2020) Subject Women singers -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Women singers -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century Music -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century Music -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century Singers -- Great Britain -- History Femininity in music. Femininity in music Music -- Social aspects Singers Women singers Great Britain Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2019058434 ISBN 9780190097585 9780190097578 0190097574 9780190097592 0190097590 0190097582

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