Additional information
by Kevin Kopelson (Author)
A vivid (and startling) example of the "new musicology," this book is an interdisciplinary study of romantic pianism in relation to gender and sexuality. Discussing erotic anxieties of musical amateurs, sexual myths concerning child prodigies, prurient interests in virtuosos, castrating figurations of "maiden" piano teachers, and the phenomenon of Liberace, the author underscores the extent to which the piano resonates with homosexuality and mortality.
Back Jacket
Beethoven's Kiss is a beguiling, insightful, sometimes funny, sometimes moving study. The book is put together performatively, as a memoir-meditation, rather than a piece of traditional scholarship. But its tacit scholarly backing is solid and up to date, and its unorthodox form is under the control of a finely tuned prose style.--Lawrence Kramer,
Fordham University
Author Biography
Kevin Kopelson is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa and the author of Love's Litany: The Writing of Modern Homoerotics (Stanford, l994). He trained as a classical pianist at the Juilliard school of music.
