Season 2, Episode 1 of Sound Expertise

We’re back! The first episode of Season 2 features Susan McClary: one of the most influential, and controversial, musicologists of our time. We talk about her lifelong pursuit of analyzing music in its cultural context, from madrigals to Madonna; the early rejections that set her on a path towards becoming a groundbreaking feminist scholar; the intense criticism to which her scholarship has been subjected; the infamous Beethoven 9 controversy; and much more.

Susan McClary is the Fynette H. Kulas Professor of Music at Case Western Reserve University.

If you’re interested in learning more about Professor McClary’s work, you can check out:

• Her pioneering 1991 book Feminine Endings
• Her 2001 book Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form
• Two more books, Modal Subjectivities: Self-Fashioning in the Italian Madrigal, and Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music
• Her most recent book, on the director Peter Sellars

Sound Expertise is hosted by Will Robin (@seatedovation), and produced by D. Edward Davis (@warmsilence). Please subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and/or Spotify. Questions or comments? Email williamlrobin@ gmail

A written transcript of this episode is available here; many thanks to Andrew Dell’Antonio for volunteering to prepare transcripts for the show!