Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology

Rating:
Summary: A good start for an exciting new field
Review: Queering the Pitch is the first anthology to be published in the new field of queer musicology (although it does draw from works like Solie's "Musicology and Difference" collection.)

The quality of the fourteen essays here varies greatly. Some, like Philip Brett's "Musicality, Essentialism, and the Closet" are absolutely earthshaking-provacative, well-written, and inspiring. Other essays seem a bit out of place, and show how much work their needs to be done in this field. It occasionally feels as if the editors had to scrape around to find enough material for the collection.

The three editors, all well-known musicologists, are to be commended for this effort. The book is already something of a classic, and has certainly helped to legitimitize this field of inquiry.