Music has been theorised as both a putative agent of moral corruption and an expressive mechanism of gender and sexual signification, capable of arousing and channelling sexual urges and desires. Through analysis of the national tropes and claims written about their voices, I offer a new approach to music history and a chance of national vocal redress for Britain’s musical future.Īcross ages and cultures, music has been associated with sexual allure, gender inversion and suspect sexuality. Pears and Deller characterised the emergence of elitist ideals that were clearly advocated in the Third Programme, while Ferrier’s voice challenged the classification of highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in broadcast culture. These three singers’ voices navigated the stratification of tastes evident during the BBC’s early years. The last chapter demonstrates that the BBC’s broadcasts of these singers’ voices were done in promotion of a collective sense of national aural identity. In the third chapter, reviews of both Deller’s and Pears’s performances highlighted discrepancies between ideals of sexuality with their voices, that pointed to underlying tensions of homosexuality and effeminacy in the broader national and cultural landscape. The second chapter addresses how both Ferrier’s and Deller’s voices embodied gender and sexual mismatches between their onstage roles and offstage bodies in performances of opera. This figures prominently in the mid-twentieth century where the musical careers of Ferrier and Deller were built on precedents of the past: Ferrier on Clara Butt and Deller on Purcell. In my first chapter, I identify how the drive for a distinct English musical identity is ultimately a manifestation of the need for a ‘national voice’.
Through voice, I offer not only a new methodological approach to the question of musical nationalism, but also an understanding of its embodiment through concepts of gender and sexuality.
I highlight how an exploration of the ‘national voice’ constitutes both an idealisation of musical sound and national belonging.
This thesis explores how the reception of Kathleen Ferrier, Alfred Deller and Peter Pears’s voices gave new insights into the constructions of national musical identity in mid-twentieth century Britain. An insider’s take on the history of queer musicology written by one of its pioneers under the impact of a beloved colleague’s death, Wood’s statement on co-authorship is a touching tribute to Brett’s memory. It gave rise to a review-article that came out in Echo later on, with excerpts from the interview. The interview that follows was conducted in mid May 2003 to verify ideas I ventured in the paper. In August the following year, I gave a paper on the article at the XIV Congress of the Brazilian Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Music. In December 2002, the Electronic Musicological Review republished the unexcised manuscript in a bilingual version that benefited from detailed discussion with the authors and commentaries by various scholars. The previous year, the GLSG Newsletter had printed “Lesbian and Gay Music”, the uncensored original of the article he and Elizabeth Wood co-authored for the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, where it appeared with various cuts as “Gay and Lesbian Music”. Philip Brett died of cancer on 16 October 2002.
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