An alternative history of 20th-century composers--nearly all of them
women or composers of color--by a leading international music critic
Think of a composer right now. Was it a white man? Perhaps in
old-fashioned clothing and wild hair? The music history we're told is
one dominated by men, and even then, only a select few enter the
zeitgeist. This conventional history perpetuates the myth of "great
works" created by "genius" artists. Men who enjoyed institutional
privilege during their lifetimes and have since been enshrined by an
industry of publishers and record labels. But just because we haven't
heard of spectacular female composers, doesn't mean they weren't
creating music all the same.
Profiling a dozen pioneering 20th-century composers--including American
modernist Ruth Crawford Seeger (mother of Pete and Peggy Seeger), French
electronic artist Éliane Radigue, Soviet visionary Galina Ustvolskaya,
and Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou--acclaimed journalist
and BBC broadcaster Kate Molleson reexamines the canon while bringing to
life largely forgotten sonic revolutionaries whose dramatic lives and
bursts of creativity played out against a backdrop of seismic
geopolitical and social change. These composers, working at a remove
from London, Paris, Vienna, and New York, were sidelined and ignored for
systemic, structural reasons. This is a landmark alternative history of
20th-century composers; a radical, new, and truly global work of
revisionist history. It is a campaigning book that challenges the status
quo while introducing you to a world of groundbreaking music.
