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These artists attempt to relate to their listeners and even hope to provide the listener with the words to express their own feelings. Music has proven to be a very important part of society, both past and present, for just this reason: expression. This medium of expression becomes even more important when the feelings being expressed are those which are not easily accepted by society. For as long as humans have inhabited the earth, homosexuality has existed. Years ago, it was considered a disease, a genetic defect. Today, people relate to this sexual preference with mixed emotions - some are very accepting, while others continue to hold prejudice against those who are open about their attraction to those of the same sex. Homosexual musicians, both male and female, have also pervaded society from before the days of Tchaikovsky to the present day with artists such as Melissa Etheridge. One difference is apparent in that homosexuality is much more accepted today than it was in the past and individuals are less afraid to "come out of the closet." I believe, however, that some things have not changed. Music is still a major way for these artists to express their sexual desires. I will attempt to examine the expression of homosexual desire and emotion in music, particularly that by lesbian artists, referring especially to analyses that have been conducted regarding the life and music of the composer Ethel Smyth. This extraordinary woman has a very colorful life that by no doubt affected her many and various compositions. She is perhaps one of the most influential women in music and an inspiration to aspiring young women composers who followed after her. Although relatively open about her sexual desires towards women, it is through analyses of her autobiographies, letters, and compositions that the extent of these desires are exposed. In her essay, Lesbian Fugue: Ethel Smyth's Contrapuntal Arts, Elizabeth Wood explores the parallels between Smyth's life and her compositions. Unlike most female composers of her day, Ethyl Smyth, born in England in 1858, was a member of a middle-class Victorian family with little artistic background. Her non- conforming ways were apparent very early in her life. Despite objection from her father, and after a number of hunger strikes and arguments at home, Ethyl attended the Leipzig Conservatory in 1877 at age nineteen. She left after one year, feeling that she was not being taught properly and began private study with Heinrich Herzogenberg. During the time after leaving the conservatory, she decided to concentrate on opera composition, an area of composition unheard of for a woman. This was just the beginning of her independent and different lifestyle. Ethyl dressed with a masculine style, often wearing pant suits and was an important activist in the English suffragist movement, even composing The March of the Women, which, after the addition of lyrics, became the Suffragettes' battle hymn. She did not attempt to conceal her lesbianism or feminist views and was quite open in her writings about the obstacles women must overcome to achieve success in a man's world. What is spectacular about this woman is her invasion of the man's world of which she speaks. Her musical repertoire contains chamber music works, piano sonatas, Lieder, opera, and masses, including one of her best works, the Mass in D. Besides writing a large collection of compositions, she has also written eight books, the majority autobiographical works, outlining the events of her exceptional life. She was never afraid to ruffle some feathers and make a statement, which is apparent in her music as well. Critics have constantly been impressed by her strength as a musician naming her the 'first woman composer, "the most remarkable of her sex"' (Bowers and Tick, 304). However, the distinction between male and female remained. Ethyl herself alluded to this fact and the boundaries it sets saying, '"At every attempt to get my head above water it was firmly pressed under again, the two fatal words [woman composer] relegating me to the ranks of the negligible"' (Raitt, 4). Although the parameters involved with being a composer and a woman are important, what are the affects of being a composer, a woman, and homosexual? Are there specific techniques or inferences that can be found in these women's compositions that may reveal the secrets of their life which society does not allow them the luxury to reveal? This is the question which Elizabeth Wood explores through analysis of Smyth's texts and music. Wood is looking for where and how Smyth discretely expressed her sexual desires to the public. It was almost impossible for Smyth to openly declare her lesbianism. The attitude of the times prohibited this openness and most surely would have had a negative effect on her musical career. Wood says that Smyth uses "music in ways that simultaneously reveal and conceal lesbian experience; that her narrative invention, which inscribes a musically coded lesbian message, is derived from the craft as well as the metaphor of fugue and fugal counterpoint" (Solie, 165). She then refers to a quote by Smyth in which the composer parallels the construction of the fugue to the construction of human personality and the fact that we are actually under the constraints of a fugal bond. A fugue in simple terms is a musical round. It is constructed of two or more parallel, but shifted voices that produce harmonies when they come together. The main theme, expressed first in one voice and then another, composes the exposition while other sections not specifically representing the central theme are termed episodes. The word fugue can be derived from fuga, the original meaning of flight. The movement of the music, one voice chasing the other, is representative of the flight and can also be connected to the heroics of the hunt which had underlying musical and sexual meanings. Wood says, "The mode and movement of the hunt as pursuit, flight, conquest, and capitulation, and its musical representation in fugal counterpoint have obvious associations with sexual seduction. For example, ..., a literary source of homosexual code-words in hunting and fowling images of the pursuit and capture of young game pheasants, peacocks, peahens, and 'pretty things'" (Solie, 167). Ethyl Smyth was a skilled hunter, rider, and horn player (an instrument of the hunt), it is therefore a good assumption that she was aware of these musical/textual code-words. Smyth's continual use of repetition in both her writing and composition alludes to the tendency of her use of the fugue. She wrote several autobiographies, usually repeating the same ideas and stories in each. She tells several versions of each story, much like the use of different voices to relate the main theme in the musical fugue. The recurring theme, in both seems to be the subject of her lesbian bond with Lisl Herzogenberg, the sister of the man with which she had her only heterosexual experience and the wife of her private teacher, Heinrich. In fact, it was her relationship with Harry Brewster (the brother) that caused Lisl to break ties with Ethel, devastating the composer. With each of her life experiences and the start of each new relationship in Smyth's life, the start of a new exposition is established. The various people in her life are the voices singing their own version of the main theme depicting Smyth's lesbian life. The flight analogy is also quite apparent as Ethel was in flight for most of her life - from home, from the conservatory, and from her feelings. Ethel's first use of the fugal theme seems to have been in 1878 when she wrote Variations on an Original Theme of an Exceedingly Dismal Nature for piano, written during a separation from Lisl. She continued to write pieces incorporating the fugue, including her String Quintet in E, op. 1 and a series of three, four, and five-part fugues for piano. The last mentioned fugues, according to Wood, "literally invent themes of flight and chase" (Solie, 181). One of Smyth's operas, Der Wald, incorporated the idea of the hunt and chase by incorporating literal hunt calls used by the opera's huntress-heroine. Each of her pieces seem to be inspired by and represented a significant event in Ethel's life, usually expressing emotions derived from her relationships. Even after she stopped composing pieces specifically labeled fugues, Ethel continued to incorporate them into her choral and orchestral works. One of the best examples of this can be found in her Mass in D which by many critics has been called a masterpiece and considered her best work. The fugue, located at the end of the Credo, is not only interesting, but the text which it accompanies has some significance in and of itself. The work premiered in 1893, one year after Lisl's death. The text, "Et vitam venturi saeculi: I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come," is introduced by a trumpet, perhaps symbolic of the hunting horn, seems to be Ethel's tribute to Lisl and an expression of her love. The segment is remarkable, a triumphant dedication to the woman whom Ethel dedicated most of her life and heart. Many say that the entire mass and its brilliance may not have been written had Ethel not had suffered over Lisl's death. (Solie, 182). Listen to Mass in D fugue with score The fugue was not the only medium through which Wood saw lesbian expression apparent within their music, again including Ethel Smyth. Wood developed a term called Sapphonics which she explains "has overtones and resonances in and beyond voice production and hidden vestibules of the body. I mean to use it as a mode of articulation, a way of describing a space of lesbian possibility, for a range of erotic and emotional relationships among women who sing and women who listen" (Brett, et al., 27). She also says that it is "a particular voice that thrills and excites me" (28). So what exactly does she mean? The concept of Sapphonics as Wood describes it is not one which I found easy to grasp. She seems to consider the voice as a tool, creating a special intimacy between other singers and those listening to the voices. It is a medium for expression and identity which can be used to express and arouse desires. Wood suggests that Smyth, who wrote all of her songs and opera parts in her own midmezzo range, utilized the Sapphonic voice for her own expression of lesbian desire. Smyth was not a trained singer and it seems that the lack of training was apparent. She created all of her vocal pieces to fit her own voice and usually sang each to experience their full effect and be sure that they created the effect which she was trying to create. Many of her friends spoke of her exquisite voice and the passion with which she sang each note, despite its unpolished quality. Wood states that "Smyth created Sapphonic space for the female singer-lover to voice lesbian desire" and that the composer "admitted to using her own singing voice to 'bribe' or lure women she loved with her music" (Brett, et al., 45). There is no question regarding Ethel Smyth's passion both for her music and for her lovers, nor her use of compositions for expression. Without music, she would surely not have had the outlet for her feelings and lesbian desires. Whether through her use of the fugue or the Sapphonic voice, Ethel had found a way to speak to her lovers and to tell the world about her sexual choice. She was no stranger to controversy, yet societal constraints did not allow her the sexual freedom that artists of today are more free to enjoy. Although the examples above are simply a product of a writer's analysis, it is hard to ignore the presence of these interesting musical techniques and the fact that Ethel herself subtly alluded to their use, or her knowledge behind their symbolism. She is a model for women musicians as well as homosexuals, an example that the fears and societal pressures that stand in the way of reaching one's goals can be overcome. Music will always remain an important part of human expression, regardless of one's personal choices or background. It links everyone who cares to listen. Bibliography: Bibliography 1)Bowers and Tick, eds. Women Making Music. Chicago: University Press, 1986.(Chapter 12. Jane A. Bernstein. "Shout , Shout, Up with Your Song!" Dame Ethel Smyth and the Changing Role of the British Woman Composer.) 2)Brett, Wood, and Thomas, eds. Queering the Pitch: the New Gay and Lesbian Musicology. Routledge: New York, 1994. (Chapter 3. Elizabeth Wood. Sapphonics.) 3)Raitt, Suzanne. "'The tide of Ethel': Femininity as Narrative in the Friendship of Ethel Smyth and Virginia Woolf." Critical Quarterly. vol. 30, no. 4, 1988. 4)Solie, R., ed. Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. (Chapter 9. Elizabeth Wood. Lesbian Fugue: Ethel Smyth's Contrapuntal Arts.) Word Count: 2111
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