Howard Pollack, The Dean of Gay Amerin Composers, Amerin Mic, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Sprg, 2000), pp. 39-49
Contents:
- ITALIAN PIANIST BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON GAY POSERS
- WAS CHOP GAY? THE AWKWARD QUTN ONE OF THE EU’S WORST UNTRI FOR LGBTQ RIGHTS
ITALIAN PIANIST BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON GAY POSERS
Classil mic wouldn't be what is today whout the great gay matros. * gay composer pianist *
He studied unr Frank Bridge, John Ireland and Arthur Benjam among others, and was also a fe ground-breakg operas, which clu Peter Grim (1945), and The Turn of the Screw (1954) – and his famo War Requiem – tackle ntemporaneo issu around psychology and post-war trma, as well his own homosexualy, which was illegal Brten’s lifetime.
As well as beg one of the first openly gay posers full stop, Poulenc also didn’t chew his sexualy the ntext of his relig posns spanned om timate chamber sonatas wh sublime, twistg melodi and lite imprsnist harmoni (thk the 1957 Flute Sonata), to his Piano Concerto and epic one-act opera for soprano and orchtra, La voix humae. Tchaikovsky was gay at a time when was illegal Rsia.
He was believed to have been gay, movg circl Italy and London where same-sex sire was accepted. Mic historian Ellen Harris leads on the se for Hanl’s homosexualy, argug that his ntatas exhib a clear homosexual subtext her book Hanl as Orphs.
WAS CHOP GAY? THE AWKWARD QUTN ONE OF THE EU’S WORST UNTRI FOR LGBTQ RIGHTS
As the world celebrat Ellgton's birthday, we look back on his openly gay pianist, poser, and iend Billy Strayhorn. * gay composer pianist *
And like them, he was associated wh gay clergyman, Cardal Pietro Baroque poser and vlist is known for his chamber sonatas and ncerti grossi, and has gone down history for refg to play a sectn of Hanl’s orator, The Triumph Of Time And Tth, bee a vl note went higher than Corelli believed appropriate for the stment.
Unlike Copland, US poser Samuel Barber ma no effort to keep his homosexualy out of explic view and his life partner was poser Gian Carlo Menotti, who he studied wh at the Curtis Instute.
Leonard Bernste also studied at the Curtis Instute wh Barber and Menotti (see above), and although he had an on-aga-off-aga relatnship wh actor Felicia Cohn Montealegre and eventually married her, he was openly gay.
Jelly Roll Morton, the self-proclaimed "ventor of jazz," didn't praise many people bis himself, but he ma an exceptn for Tony Jackson: "Tony was nsired among all who knew him the greatt sgle-hand entertaer the world.” And Jackson was openly gay at a time when that was credibly rare. * gay composer pianist *
Montealegre herself wrote publicly about her book, The Bernste Letters, “you are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t adm to the possibily of a double life, but if your peace of md, your health, your whole nervo system pend on a certa sexual pattern what n you do? ” Bernste’s Wt Si Story llaborator Arthur Lrents is known to have lled Bernste “a gay man who got married”, statg, “He wasn't nflicted about at all. He was jt gay.
Harris lays out the se Hanl was a homosexual. Ptr Ilyich TchaikovskyWhile historians Rsia nied for centuri that Tchaikovsky was gay, Eastern voic recent years have e around to the notn the tenrns the poser's mic me om gay sir. Even Rsian Print Vladimir Put, famo for enforcg antigay laws, today acknowledg Tchaikovsky's leangs.
Jean-Baptiste LullyThe liberte Lully was a poser, mician, and famed dancer the urt of France's Kg Louis XIV, where his gay sexualy was an open secret. At one pot, he had a well-known affair wh royal mic page B, acrdg to Gee Haggerty's Encyclopedia of Gay Histori and Cultur, but the boy was imprisoned when the poser fell out of favor wh the kg. Freric ChopThe legendary 19th-century Polish poser wrote love letters to Tyt Wojciechowski that revealed his persuasn, acrdg to historian Michel Lariviere, and there is evince he had male lovers before that as well, cludg the openly and famoly gay Marquis Cte.