this defeat, France asserted its cultural su- One of the volume’s drawbacks is that positional career, is the founder and host periority by revisiting French literary and typeface, margins, and the use of footnotes of Philadelphia’s Salon, an all-embracing musical history and redefning it as mascu- or endnotes difer from essay to essay and multimedia performance series, and she line and, therefore, superior. This was re- several are small, faint, and hard to read. has received numerous awards, commis- inforced by sending women back into the In addition, the reprinted articles have both sions, and grants. The works that I listened home, so that their feminizing infuence in the original as well as the book’s page num- to online reveal a composer steeped in and the public sphere would not weaken France bers, which can be confusing, although the inspired by nineteenth- and twentieth-cen- politically or culturally. book does have a good index. Many of tury European-American classical music Part Two includes: Aaron Copland, the extensive notes are in French or Ger- as well as Asian traditions. Ms. Clearfeld’s Nadia Boulanger, and the Making of an man, and thus not immediately helpful to awareness of and inventiveness for timbral ‘American’ Composer (2006); ‘Presenting those who read only English. The greatest mixing and the facility with which she bal- a Great Truth’: William Grant Still’s Afro- strength of The Politics of Musical Identity ances structural and rhythmic shapes are American Symphony (1930) (1 musical is the way that Fauser examines essentially always evident, as is her ability to realize example, 2011); and ‘Dixie Carmen’: War, a single time period from an array of dif- the potentials of motivic continuity. Along Race, and Identity in Oscar Hammerstein’s ferent perspectives and through a variety of the way she often and almost efortlessly Carmen Jones (1943) (3 images; 1 musi- music, providing readers with an in-depth, shape-shifts between aggressive-rough and cal example; Appendix listing/comparing multi-faceted view of the era. lyrical-smooth gestures, at times suddenly, musical numbers in Carmen and Carmen Lynn Gumert, D.Mus., is a composer, performer, at other times gradually. Jones; Bibliography, 2010). The focus and conductor with an interest in feminist theory Convergence is a rhapsodic duet for in Part Two is on the construction of an and identity construction. She is artistic director viola and piano. You might say it is mono- American musical identity, in particular of Zorzal Music Ensemble, a vocal-instrumental motivic, though not totally monothematic the ways in which jazz and blues became ensemble devoted to the performance of Sep- in the sense that the listener can discern elements in the construction of modern- hardic, Latin American, Baroque, and nueva the source of the tunes and harmonies and ist music. Because jazz and blues emerge canción music. She currently studies Music sweeping gestures; all transpires straight- from African American culture, questions Therapy at Montclair State University. For more forwardly yet subtly. The meta-kernel is information, please visit www.lynngumert.com. of race and class arise. heard at the start, innocently at frst, and Part Three includes: Rheinsirenen: Compact Disc Reviews then, as if listening to itself, unspooling Loreley and Other Rhine Maidens (3 im- creatively and artfully discovering what’s ages, 4 musical examples, 2006); Creating Convergences: Johannes possible. The manner in which Conver- Madame Landowska (6 images, 1 table, Brahms & Andrea Clearfeld gence knows what it’s about, and lets us 2006); La Guerre en dentelles: Women and Barbara Westphal, viola, and Christian Ru- know gradually and with clarity, seems to the Prix de Rome in French Cultural Poli- volo, piano. Bridge Records 9442 (2015) me to be the most defning quality of the tics (6 images, 6 musical examples, 1998); ELAINE R. BARKIN work. The structure reveals itself from mo- Composing as a Catholic: Rereading Lili ment to moment with ease, with obeisance Boulanger’s Vocal Music (2 musical exam- Andrea Clearfeld’s Convergence for viola to its motivic origins, and with surprising ples, 1 table, 2006); and Lili Boulanger’s and piano (2008) is fanked on the Conver- and ultimately logical detours. La Princesse Maleine: A Composer and gences recording by Johannes Brahms’s The overall harmonic palette is minor: her Heroine as Literary Icons (10 musical Sonata for violin and piano, op. 78 and So- minor thirds, minor seconds, minor modali- examples, 2 tables, 1997). Although gen- nata for violoncello and piano, op. 38, both ties, tritonal harmonies in a multitude of 1 der is discussed throughout the book, the transcribed for viola. Violist Barbara West- shapes and textures. Convergence opens particular focus in this section is on gender phal commissioned Convergence from Ms. with the viola playing E-C#, short-long, politics, since “gender crosses from cultur- Clearfeld, thinking it would complement way down on the C string as the piano, at al identity politics into actual body politics the transcribed Romantic works. And she frst, provides close-by and far-of harmon- where women musicians are concerned. thought correctly. Not that Convergence ic commentary. The two-note motive grows Deeply interrelated, the ensounding of sounds anything like Brahms, but this re- into an interplay of semitonally adjacent gender in music and the policing of gender cent one-movement work sustains its in- minor thirds and, plant-like, continues to in cultural, social, and political life defned tensity and clarity of form with fuency and grow, expand, recur, transform, extend with and limited the worlds of musical women makes the most of its relatively short life piano elaborations and support. After ap- throughout history” (xv). (10’49”). Christian Ruvolo is the pianist on proximately two minutes, the piano bursts On the whole, this book of essays is a all three works, and he and Ms. Westphal, out, discovers its own voice, and takes the rich source for examining musical history both of whom teach at the Music Con- lead, by which time multi-octave registers in relation to intersections of identity, both servatory in Lübeck, Germany, pair well. have been explosively spanned and multi- personal and national. Most of the essays Each is technically masterful and capable directionally rippled in both instruments. focus on music in France from about 1860 of lyricism and dynamism, and each listens Although we can easily distinguish until the 1920s and should be required to the other: foregrounding, background- between instruments, the work can be reading for anyone interested in that time ing, and partnering. heard as if conceived for some giant hybrid period. It has more limited usefulness for Prior to writing this review, I had not string-keyboard apparatus. The pair shares, general courses because of this specifcity. heard any of Andrea Clearfeld’s music. She reinterprets, and surrounds each voice in- has already crafted a distinguished com- Book, Compact Disc, and Concert Reviews 29 side, outside, uppermost, below the other, published in major new music magazines, and motive in the tambourine, fute, and clarinet segments of dialogue or cadenza-like solil- has taught composition and theory at Sarah in “Rain Water.” This trio is later joined by oquy interspersing throughout. Ms. West- Lawrence College, University of Michigan, Vic- the rest of the ensemble in a Copland-esque phal and Mr. Ruvolo easily switch in and toria University in Wellington, New Zealand, dance. Despite a few intonation problems Semester at Sea and University of California, out of character, the viola’s dark warmth in the upper winds, the piece is played with Los Angeles (Professor Emerita in 1997). She and the piano’s multi-faceted personality was co-editor of Perspectives of New Music, re- the nuance and skill of virtuoso players deftly attended to by the duo, each always cipient of numerous grants and residencies, and In Falling Still, Doolittle crafts a sense aware of the other’s presence. co-founder of Open Space Music in 1989. She of stillness using a foating melody of sus- Less than halfway in, a d-minor-like has performed in and composed for Balinese tained notes and quasi-improvisatory ges- Romantic-in-spirit melody takes over for a Gamelan ensembles at UCLA and Cal Arts. tures in the oboe. This melody, which Brent bit, and, as earlier, its framing interval is a Hages delivers with a delicate tone and ex- minor third; here D-F. An organic sensibility All Spring: Chamber Music of pressive infections, is supported by the un- infuses the work, not routinely growing in Emily Doolittle derlying warmth and homophonic motion one direction but rather sprouting one way, Seattle Chamber Players and friends. of the strings. Despite the title and a sense then another, then pausing, then re-branch- Composers Concordance Records, Com- of direction and rhythmic activity, still- ing. Despite recurrences, the varying lengths con 0025 (2015) ness saturates this piece with the constant of dependent and independent phrases bal- SOPHIA TEGART presence of fourths and ffths, providing a ance one another, not necessarily equally, lovely contrast to the rest of the CD as it Canadian composer Emily Doolittle re- but each contributing to and continuing the explores the gentle and quieter side of na- cently moved to Glasgow, Scotland, after momentum of the work, converging and di- ture. The impeccable intonation and equal having served as Associate Professor of verging. Although we may not know where balance among the ensemble makes the in- Music at the Cornish College of the Arts in we are being taken, arrivals and departures termittent dissonances even more afective. Seattle. She studied at Koninklijk Conser- are usually clear and often connected or in- The CD’s title piece, All Spring, has vatorium in The Hague, Indiana University, tertwined, though now and then an abrupt fve movements, each on a poem by Rae and Princeton.