Amidst a summer break flying by all too quickly, RILM presents another installment of its Instant Classics series—posts comprising annotated bibliographies of books, indexed in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, that have received the most reviews in academic literature across a given time span. The content of these books exemplifies RILM’s commitment to disseminating publications that are truly international in scope, with coverage that embraces a diversity of languages, nations, subject matter, and approaches to music research. This 2022—23 list contains a little something for everyone, and we hope it will inspire some welcomed additions to your summer reading list.
As always, this collection should be approached with a critical eye. As reviews continue to be written, the order of the books included here will continuously be in flux and, over time, some could be replaced by others. Further, access to resources, familiarity with conventions of proposal writing that are attractive to publishers, and innumerable other factors vary considerably across music research communities around the world. Indeed, closing the gap in such disparities, particularly regarding publications coming from the Global South, is an essential component of RILM’s mission. Despite the inherent limitations, collecting these texts in this way is valuable, as it generates an archive of the topics, methodologies, and perspectives that earned the attention of music scholars, writers, and journalists during a brief period in time. We can appreciate these texts’ contributions to musical knowledge while simultaneously being aware of the powers held and challenges faced by the publishing firms and university presses that sell them. As we zoom out, patterns may emerge that provide insight into the topical trends that have contributed to music discourse in the early decades of the 21st century.
And finally, do keep in mind that RILM can only disseminate the writings on music to which it has access. You are invited to help make RILM Abstracts be as complete as it can be by visiting our submissions page, making sure records of your publications appear there, and adding abstracts and reviews to them as necessary. We thank you in advance and wish you a happy summer of reading!
P.S.: Sympathies to Arnold Schoenberg, the book on whom, either predictably, eerily, coincidentally, or uncannily, placed at number 13, the one number he avoided more than any other while he was alive.
– Written, compiled, and edited by Michael Lupo, Assistant Editor/Marketing & Media, RILM
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#13. Sachs, Harvey. Schoenberg: Why he matters (New York: Liveright, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-4761]
Abstract: In his time, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) was an international icon. His twelve-tone system was considered the future of music itself. Today, however, leading orchestras rarely play his works, and his name is met with apathy, if not antipathy. Within the context of this interpretative account, Schoenberg’s reputation is restored to his rightful place in the canon, revealing him as one of the 20th century’s most influential composers and teachers. Schoenberg, a thorny character who composed thorny works, raged against the “Procrustean bed” of tradition. Defying his critics—among them the Nazis, who described his music as “degenerate”—he constantly battled the antisemitism that eventually precipitated his flight from Europe to Los Angeles. Yet Schoenberg, synthesizing Wagnerian excess with Brahmsian restraint, created a shock wave that never quite subsided, and his compositions must be confronted by anyone interested in the past, present, or future of Western music.
#12. Broad, Leah. Quartet: How four women changed the musical world (London: Faber & Faber, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-1400]
Abstract: A group biography of four women composers who changed the modern musical landscape: Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), famous for her operas, was a trailblazing queer Victorian composer and a larger-than-life socialite, intrepid traveller, and committed Suffragette. Rebecca Clarke (1886–1979) was a talented violist and Pre-Raphaelite beauty, and one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra, later celebrated for her modernist experimentation. Dorothy Howell (1898–1982) was a prodigy who shot to fame at the 1919 Proms. She earned a reputation as the “English Strauss”, and after retiring she tended Elgar’s grave alone. Doreen Carwithen (1922–2003) was one of Britain’s first woman film composers, who scored Elizabeth II’s coronation film; her success hid a 20-year affair with her married composition tutor. In their time, these women were celebrities. They composed some of the century’s most popular music and pioneered creative careers; but today, they are ghostly presences, surviving only as muses and footnotes to male contemporaries like Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Britten.
#11. Proksch, Bryan. The golden age of American bands: A document history (1835–1935) (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-10133]
Abstract: The story of the American wind band, told chronologically by those who experienced it in real time from 1835 to 1935. The volume explores how bands became bands, how they rose in popularity, and which figures had insights and specific impacts on the development of the genre. Through source documents and articles, the volume surveys the ensemble’s history from the time of the first brass bands in the 1830s, through the Civil War and the golden ages of Patrick S. Gilmore and John Philip Sousa, to the cusp of the wind ensemble just before World War II. Musicians such as Frederick Fennell, Allessandro Liberati, Karl L. King, Patrick Conway, Fredrick Neil Innes, Jules Levy, Alan Dodworth, and Herbert L. Clarke are included. Numerous rare and unknown illustrations show the places where band history happened. Documents include rare periodical excerpts, handwritten letters, and other writings taken from archives throughout the United States.
#10. Bonnette-Bailey, Lakeyta Moninque and Adolphus G. Belk, Jr., eds. For the culture: Hip-hop and the fight for social justice. Music and social justice (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-4800]
Abstract: Documents and analyzes the ways in which hip hop music, artists, scholars, and activists have discussed, promoted, and supported social justice challenges worldwide. Drawing from diverse approaches and methods, the contributors in this volume demonstrate that rap music can positively influence political behavior and fight to change social injustices, and then zoom in on artists whose work has accomplished these ends. The volume explores topics including education and pedagogy; the Black Lives Matter movement; the politics of crime, punishment, and mass incarceration; electoral politics; gender and sexuality; and the global struggle for social justice. Ultimately, the book argues that hip hop is much more than a musical genre or cultural form: hip hop is a resistance mechanism.
#9. Vera Aguilera, Alejandro and David Andrés Fernández. Los cantorales de la Catedral de Lima: Estudio, reconstrucción, catálogo (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Musicología, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-1557]
Resumen: Los cantorales de la Catedral de Lima estudia, por primera vez, la colección de libros de coro de la Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, que está formada por cuarenta volúmenes manuscritos copiados en su mayor parte en el siglo XVII. En el estudio inicial, se aborda su historia, confección y escribas responsables. Seguidamente, se indaga sobre su forma de interpretación en la época colonial a través de la reconstrucción de un servicio litúrgico de suma importancia en su contexto. Finalmente, se ofrece un catálogo crítico de la colección que incluye sus contenidos íntegros en forma de índices analíticos y alfabéticos que facilitan su localización. En suma, este trabajo constituye un estudio integral sobre una colección de libros de canto llano conservada en Sudamérica. Además, representa una útil herramienta de investigación en la que se exhuman numerosos documentos históricos y se presentan transcripciones de repertorio tanto monódico como polifónico, razón por la que será de interés para musicólogos, historiadores e intérpretes, entre otros.
Abstract: Studies, for the first time, the collection of choir books of the Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, which consists of 40 manuscript volumes copied mostly in the 17th century. The history, physical features, and scribes who worked on the manuscripts are discussed. The way this collection was used in colonial times is examined through the reconstruction of a liturgical service from its context. An annotated catalogue of the collection is offered, which includes its complete contents in the form of analytical and alphabetical indexes that facilitate its location.
#8. Marissen, Michael. Bach against modernity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-3999]
Abstract: Many scholars and music lovers hold that Bach is a modern figure, as his music seems to speak directly to the aesthetic, spiritual, or emotional concerns of today’s listeners. But, by 18th-century standards, Bach and his music in fact reflected and forcefully promoted a premodern world and life view. A new look at Bach is presented that considers problems of inattentiveness to historical considerations in academic and popular writing about Bach’s relation to the present. Also put forward are interpretive reassessments of key individual works by Bach, examining problems in modern comprehension of the partly archaic German texts that Bach set to music. Lastly, Bach’s music is explored in relation to premodern versus enlightened attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, and the theological character of Bach’s secular instrumental music is examined. Overlooked or misunderstood evidence is provided of Bach’s private engagement with religious and social issues that he also addressed in his public vocal compositions. While we are free to make use of Bach and his music in whatever ways we find fitting, we ought also to guard against miscasting Bach in our own ideological image and proclaiming the authenticity of that image, and therefore its prestige value, in support of our own agendas.
#7. Goodman, Karen D., ed. Developing issues in world music therapy education and training: A plurality of views (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 2023). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2023-7332]
Abstract: Reflects on current or necessary changes in music therapy training that come about because of history, society, economy, generational shifts, and the workplace. The subject matter questions the nature of music therapy itself; examines challenges to education and training; suggests critical thinking (vs. repetition or repackaging of information) for students, educators, clinicians, researchers and supervisors in the field of music therapy; respects the past but looks to the future; and offers perspectives from others in the field through such vehicles as surveys, interviews, and reviews of literature.
#6. Mathew, Nicholas. The Haydn economy: Music, aesthetics, and commerce in the late eighteenth century. New material histories of music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-10831]
Abstract: Reimagines the world of Joseph Haydn and his contemporaries, with its catastrophic upheavals and thrilling sense of potential. Critical questions are addressed, such as how we tell the history of the European Enlightenment and Romanticism; the relation of late 18th-century culture to incipient capitalism and European colonialism; and how the modern market and modern aesthetic values were—and remain—inextricably entwined. The study weaves a vibrant material history of Haydn’s career, extending from the sphere of the ancient Esterházy court to his frenetic years as an entrepreneur plying between London and Vienna to his final decade as a venerable musical celebrity, during which he witnessed the transformation of his legacy by a new generation of students and acolytes, Beethoven foremost among them. Ultimately, Haydn’s historical trajectory compels us to ask what we might retain from the cultural and political practices of European modernity—whether we can extract and preserve its moral promise from its moral failures. And it demands that we confront the deep histories of capitalism that continue to shape our beliefs about music, sound, and material culture.
#5. Dylan, Bob. The philosophy of modern song (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-9712]
Abstract: Comprises over 60 essays written by the Pulitzer Prize winning songwriter, focusing on songs by other artists spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. Among many other subjects, the trap of easy rhymes is analyzed, breaking down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, while also explaining how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. Over 100 photos are included, as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem—characteristic of the author’s own work in the field of songwriting—adding to the work’s transcendence.
#4. Denk, Jeremy. Every good boy does fine: A love story, in music lessons (New York: Random House, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-954]
Abstract: Pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. His life is already a little tough as a precocious, temperamental six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey, and then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico. There, Denk must please a new taskmaster, an embittered but devoted professor, while navigating junior high school. At 16 he escapes to college in Ohio, only to encounter a bewildering new cast of music teachers, both kind and cruel. After many humiliations and a few triumphs, he ultimately finds his way as a world-touring pianist, a MacArthur genius, and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. But under all this struggle is a love letter to the act of teaching. Denk dives deeply into the pieces and composers that have shaped him—Bach, Mozart, and Brahms, among others—and offers lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. How do melodies work? Why is harmony such a mystery to most people? Why are teachers so obsessed with the metronome? Denk shares the most meaningful lessons of his life, and tries to repay a debt to his teachers. He also reminds us that we must never stop asking questions about music and its purposes: consolation, an armor against disillusionment, pure pleasure, a diversion, a refuge, and a vehicle for empathy.
#3. Cypess, Rebecca. Women and musical salons in the Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-4905]
Abstract: A broad overview of musical salons between 1760 and 1800, placing the figure of the salonnière at its center. The author presents a series of in-depth case studies that meet the salonnière on her own terms. Women such as Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy in Paris, Marianne von Martínez in Vienna, Sara Levy in Berlin, Angelica Kauffman in Rome, and Elizabeth Graeme in Philadelphia come to life in multidimensional ways. Crucially, the author uses performance as a tool for research, and her interpretations draw on her experience with the instruments and performance practices used in 18th-century salons. The book explores women’s agency and authorship, reason and sentiment, and the roles of performing, collecting, listening, and conversing in the formation of 18th-century musical life.
#2. Vela González, Marta. La jota, aragonesa y cosmopolita: De San Petersburgo a Nueva York (Zaragoza: Pregunta, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-14921]
Resumen: En este libro, la pianista, escritora y docente Marta Vela nos lleva tras los pasos de renombrados compositores (Liszt, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Satie?) que, a lo largo del siglo XIX, visitaron España, descubrieron la jota aragonesa y, fascinados, la integraron en sus obras, desde óperas hasta sinfonías, pasando por ballets y música de salón. Un libro lleno de curiosidades, erudición, anécdotas y hallazgos inéditos, narrado de forma amena y precisa.
Abstract: In this book, the pianist, writer, and teacher Marta Vela takes us in the footsteps of renowned composers (Liszt, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Satie?) who, throughout the 19th century, visited Spain, discovered the Aragonese jota and, fascinated, integrated it into their works, from operas to symphonies, including ballets and salon music. A book full of curiosities, erudition, anecdotes, and unpublished discoveries, narrated in a pleasant and precise way.
#1. Simon, Andrew. Media of the masses: Cassette culture in modern Egypt. Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022). [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2022-3929]
Abstract: Investigates the social life of an everyday technology—the cassette tape—to offer a multisensory history of modern Egypt. Over the 1970s and 1980s, cassettes became a ubiquitous presence in Egyptian homes and stores. Audiocassette technology gave an opening to ordinary individuals, from singers to smugglers, to challenge state-controlled Egyptian media. Enabling an unprecedented number of people to participate in the creation of culture and circulation of content, cassette players and tapes soon informed broader cultural, political, and economic developments and defined modern Egyptian households. Drawing on a wide array of audio, visual, and textual sources that exist outside the Egyptian national archives, it provides a new entry point into understanding everyday life and culture. Cassettes and cassette players did not simply join other 20th century mass media, like records and radio; they were the media of the masses. Comprised of little more than magnetic reels in plastic cases, cassettes empowered cultural consumers to become cultural producers long before the advent of the Internet. Positioned at the productive crossroads of social history, cultural anthropology, and media and sound studies, it ultimately shows how the most ordinary things may yield the most surprising insights.
