© 2020 Noël Yitsi Wan AGENTIAL REALISM AND THE “FEMALE HARPIST”: THE RELATIONAL ONTOLOGY OF GENDERHARP IN GEORGES APERGHIS’ FIDÉLITÉ (1982) BY NOËL YITSI WAN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music with a concentration in Performance and Literature in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Ann Yeung, Chair Associate Professor Michael B. Silvers, Director of Research Professor Janet Revell Barrett Professor Sever Tipei ii ABSTRACT The confluence of feminist scholar Karen Barad’s critical theories (agential realism, posthumanist performativity, posthumanism, new materialism) and Greek-French composer Georges Aperghis’ solo harp work Fidélité: pour harpiste seule regardée par un homme (“for female harpist watched by a man”) creates new philosophical interpretations for the relationship between gender and the Western European pedal harp. This dissertation first introduces Barad’s theory of agential realism as a new materialist, feminist intervention on historical and contemporary perspectives of gender—and particularly of women and femininitY—in the Western European classical harp tradition. Within this exploration I have coined the term “genderharp” to argue that gender is inseparably entangled, not just within the discourse of, but also the very materiality of the pedal harp; gender is co-produced with harp, harpist, and other material bodies during the processes of configuring musical performances. In response, I use the theatrical setting of Aperghis’ work Fidélité as a case study for demonstrating genderharp. The secondary purpose of this dissertation answers the questions of “Is application of agential realism to the music of Georges Aperghis appropriate?” and “Does this application work?” Aperghis’ connection with the French post-structuralists Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, whose theories have influenced new materialist and posthumanist scholars, provides a strong foundation for agential realism as a powerful interpretive tool for investigating (and participating in the creation of) social and musical identities as interrelations of sound and body in performance. Ultimately, these layered explorations of agential realism, genderharp, and Fidélité generate a feminist- activist stance towards narratives of gender in the classical harp community, arguing that these narratives, instead of existing at a distance from us, emerge from our bodily practices. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee members for the many ways in which their support and areas of expertise have shaped my identity as a performer and a nascent scholar. To Dr. Janet Barrett, whose research on interdisciplinarity in music education has inspired me to think about pedagogy in so many different ways. To Dr. Sever Tipei, for teaching the music theory course that helped me connect my appreciation for art film, French philosophy, and experimental music (which is clearly present in this project!). To my advisor Dr. Michael Silvers, for introducing me to the work of Karen Barad and Donna Haraway, for guiding me through the persistent uncertainty of my research, and for teaching me how to be a better and more compassionate writer. Lastly, to my mentor and teacher Dr. Ann Yeung, whose own doctoral research has served as the inspiration for mine, but more importantly, for the past eighteen years of musical and professional insight, and for teaching me to always think critically about my perspectives of the harp, of music, and of life. I would also like to thank Georges Aperghis and the Editions Peters Group for their permission to include score excerpts and to acknowledge the many intrepid performers whose recordings of Aperghis’ music have provided invaluable resources for my research. I am indebted to many friends and family for their emotional and professional support over the years. My parents, Dr. Chungping Wan and Dr. Shengyun Chen, have instilled in me their enduring commitment to education and have supported me with their financial generosity throughout my life. I am grateful to my sister Joy, for years of emotional support and the countless philosophical discussions that have shaped and continue to shape my worldview. I also acknowledge my parents-in-law, Michael Murray and Dr. Frances Turner, who helped me adjust iv to my new life in Ontario while I was trying to finish writing, and my brother-in-law Jean, for spirited conversations about politics and activism and for introducing me to the beautiful poetry of BillY-Ray Belcourt. To my partner Patrick MurraY—thank you for hours spent listening to my ideas, for proofreading many drafts, and for supporting my tortuous and torturous intellectual journey. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 PART I: “The Relationship Between a Woman and Her Instrument” ......................................... 35 CHAPTER ONE: GENDERHARP AND AGENTIAL REALISM ............................................. 36 PART II: “The Relationship Between a Woman and Music” ...................................................... 73 CHAPTER TWO: READING GEORGES APERGHIS THROUGH CRITICAL THEORIES .. 74 CHAPTER THREE: FIDÉLITÉ, A GENDERHARP CASE STUDY ....................................... 100 PART III: “The Relationship Between a Woman and Her Identity as a (Married) Woman” .... 130 CHAPTER FOUR: CRITICAL DIFFRACTIONS OF FIDÉLITÉ ............................................ 131 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 180 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 202 1 INTRODUCTION The illusion that the harp has always been a feminine instrument is erroneous; it would be more correct to say that the pedal harp has long been associated with the female gender, an association that has influenced its repertoire, its design, its performers, and its reception.1 - Ann Yeung At the turn of the twentieth century, a woman named Juliette Grandjany asked the French harpist-composer and pedagogue Henriette Renié, “What future is there for a man harpist?” Renié responded, “Very big; there are hardly any.”2 The man harpist in the question was Marcel Grandjany, currently recognized as one of the greatest Western classical harp pedagogues in the twentieth century. Renié’s response runs consistently with the history of the Western3 classical pedal harp, which teems with names of European men: Elias Parish Alvars, Robert Nicholas Charles Bochsa, Osian Ellis, Félix Godefroid, Marcel Grandjany, Alphonse Hasselmans, Josef Molnar, Antoine Prumier, Alberto Salvi, Carlos Salzedo, Marcel Tournier, Nicanor Zabaleta, Albert Zabel, and many others. Male harpists, despite their modern scarcity, have occupied positions of prestige and power in the classical harp canon; meanwhile, by relative proportion, multitudes of their female students and colleagues have remained in the shadows of their male counterparts for several hundred years. Moving into the twentY-first century, the topic of gender continues to loom in the rhetoric around Western pedal harp practices, fueling passionate 1 Ann Yeung, “Gender, Image, and Reception: The Development and Social History of the Pedal Harp” (DMus thesis, Indiana University, 1998), 159. 2 Ruth Inglefield, Marcel Grandjany: Concert Harpist, Composer, and Teacher (Washington D.C.: University Press of America, 1977), 7-9. 3 My use of “Western” refers specifically to Western Europe and namely, regions of Western Europe in which the concert pedal harp tradition emerged. These regions consist of modern France and Germany, and to a lesser extent, England and Italy. I henceforth use “Western” and “Western European” interchangeably. 2 arguments ranging from equality in gender representation to problematic, sexualized depictions of female harpists. In the 2005 New York Times article “Bringing the Harp Down to Earth, Trying to Make It Rock,” music critic Michael White addresses contemporary harpists’ own concerns with the harp’s feminized reputation and Italian harp maker Victor Salvi’s quest to strengthen the sound of and radicalize the public perception of dainty, gilded nineteenth-century harps: Victor Salvi’s artisans and technicians have spent half a century trying to remedy that problem: making the sound stronger, bigger, but still focused; making changes to the pedal mechanism, to the balance of the frame. And the Salvi employees have undertaken more radical experiments, not least, electric harps for rock and pop performance. At the same time there have been design changes: new, sleeker, sharper-looking models with less decoration, and a lot less gilding. Armed with these, Mr. Salvi turned his attention to the issue of public image. … It is Mr. Salvi himself who has undertaken to change the harp’s reputation. In Marie Antoinette’s day, playing the harp was a discreet tool of seduction, an excuse for young ladies to flash their arms and ankles at young men. But who needs such elaborate excuses anymore? The harp, thought Mr. Salvi, needs a different kind of P. R.4 InternationallY-acclaimed Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, “the streetwise harpist, raunchily provocative in leather trousers and sweeping hairstyles, playing chic black harps with not a cherub or a flower