“To engage with CocoRosie requires absolute suspension of disbe- lief,” writes The Guardian. This has as much to do with their music as their appearance, for sisterly duo CocoRosie have embraced what they call a “posthuman kind of style” rooted in the dissolution of gender. In an effort to imagine a world beyond human constructions of gender,…[Read more]

For over ten years, Los Angeles arts patron Betty Freeman (1921–2009) welcomed composers, performers, scholars, patrons, and invited guests into her home for a series of monthly musicales that were known as ‘Salotto’. In this article, I analyse Freeman’s musicales within a sociological framework of gender and what Randall Collins calls ‘intera…[Read more]

A detailed review of vol. 2 of Berlioz’s complete correspondence, with many corrections of errors in the edition. The article also prints, for the first time, eight letters of Berlioz, with translation and commentary.

In 1587 the Flemish composer Carolus Luython, employed by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, published an unusual motet collection in Prague. Titled Popularis anni jubilus, the collection describes the sounds and rituals beloved by Central European peasants, recasting them as the ecstatic songs of rustic laborers (jubilus) famously celebrated by Saint…[Read more]

Rolf de Maré’s Ballets Suédois was active from 1920 to 1925. It was the chief artistic rival to Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and de Maré was often referred to as the Swedish Serge Diaghilev. With Jean Börlin as chief choreographer, the company created twenty-four ballets in collaboration with prominent modern artists and composers, includi…[Read more]