Sigma Alpha Iota

56 Fall 2023 • sai-national.org THIS WOMAN'S WORK: ESSAYS ON MUSIC Edited by Sinéad Gleeson and Kim Gordon Hachette Books, 2022 T his Woman's Work is a new anthology of women writing about music. The authors represent a wide range of ethnicities and identities, and they cover an array of musical topics using different formats, including personal essays, creative non-fiction, an interview, and more straightforward informational pieces. Musical styles considered include popular, jazz, rap, and classical. Many of the essays reflect the importance of a particular type of music or musician to the author personally. For instance, Fatima Bhutto shares the songs she has used as touchstones throughout a life spent in exile from her native Pakistan. Likewise, Leslie Jamison documents the "mixtapes" of music she associates with different periods of her life. Yiyun Li contemplates her relationship with the song "Auld Lang Syne," which she learned and played on the accordion growing up in China, in an essay that becomes a meditation on the death of her teenaged son. The more direct accounts of musicians and composers also involve the personal as well. For example, Margo Jefferson writes about the physical presence of Ella Fitzgerald as it relates to her self-awareness and the way society has circumscribed the role of woman of color. In addition, the life of avant-garde composer Wendy Carlos is explored in terms of the way her music has affected author Sinéad Gleeson's life. Other chapters in the book introduced me to musical figures of whom I had little knowledge, including folk singer Lucinda Williams, jazz musician Linda Sharrock, and Agnes "Sis" Cunningham, a contemporary of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger who was a songwriter and editor/publisher of Broadside magazine. Other chapters included meaningful tributes to musical women who were important in the personal lives of the authors. These are just some highlights from the sixteen chapters of This Woman's Work. Every essay has a unique perspective and style, and although not all will be to everyone's taste, there is enough variety to appeal to most readers. This is a worthwhile book for the insight it provides into the many ways women have participated in and been affected by music. Kathi Bower Peterson is a graduate of Indiana University, where she majored in music history and oboe, and was a member of Iota Epsilon chapter. She also has an MM (in musicology) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She has been the librarian at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, California since 1997 and currently serves as the treasurer of the San Diego County Alumnae Chapter, as well as the Coordinator of Scholarships for SAI Philanthropies, Inc. Reviews CLEMENTI AND THE WOMAN AT THE PIANO: VIRTUOSITY AND THE MARKETING OF MUSIC IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON By Erin Helyard Liverpool University Press, 2022 D uring my piano studies growing up, I always enjoyed playing Muzio Clementi's music. It had clever turns of phrase, and was simply fun to play. It therefore surprised me later on to hear this composer's work referred to disparagingly by some music historians and pianists. Apparently they consider Clementi's music inferior to that of his contemporaries and overshadowed by Clementi's skill as a businessman, marketing music and pianos. Erin Helyard's book, however, makes a convincing argument that this view is unfair and inaccurate, and provides details and nuance of which readers would otherwise have been unaware. Although I was familiar with the music of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), I knew little about the man himself. However, the author chooses to delay giving biographical information until Chapter 4, instead beginning with an analysis of Clementi's position in relation to Enlightenment culture, his "rivalry" with Mozart, and the role of gender in keyboard performance in London. I was, therefore, not sure how Clementi ended up in London until later in the book. It turns out that Clementi was essentially "purchased" at the age of 13 by an English aristocrat named Peter Beckford, who was visiting Clementi's native Rome and became enamored of his skill at the keyboard. Clementi spent the next seven years improving his musical skills and studying, and he remained in England for the rest of his life. Overall, Helyard's book focuses on the world of female amateur keyboard players and the music that was available to them. Using contemporary women's conduct guides, he goes into depth about what was expected of women in the upper classes during the eighteenth century, particularly that they needed to be skilled at the keyboard, but not too skilled. Their abilities were primarily a tool used to attract a husband, and too much prowess at the keyboard implied that a woman might have neglected establishing proficiency at other important domestic pursuits. It was for this clientele that Clementi's music was a perfect fit. It was also popular and challenging enough to encourage regular practice and improvement. Clementi's business acumen, and his promotion of his own music (including method books), as well as the sale of the new keyboards to which his music was tailored, created a significant cultural shift. Helyard does an admirable job at delving into the cultural ideologies of the Enlightenment era, as well as making a compelling case for the importance of Muzio Clementi and his impact on the evolving world of keyboard music during the eighteenth century. I found the book a meaningful consideration of gender roles at this time in history, as well as an in-depth look at the significance of Clementi's music.

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