Music of the Sirens

Whether referred to as mermaid, usalka, mami wata, or by some other name, and whether considered an imaginary being or merely a person with extraordinary abilities, the siren is the remarkable creature that has inspired music and its representations from ancient Greece to present-day Africa and Latin America. This book, co-edited by a historical musicologist and an ethnomusicologist, brings together leading scholars and some talented newcomers in classics, music, media studies, literature, and cultural studies to consider the siren and her multifaceted relationships to music across human time and geography.

Linda Phyllis Austern is Associate Professor of Musicology in the School of Music, Northwestern University.

Inna Naroditskaya is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology in the School of Music, Northwestern University.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

vii

Introduction: Singing Each to Each

INNA NARODITSKAYA AND LINDA PHYLLIS AUSTERN

1

(15)

1. Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENS

16

(36)

2. "Teach Me to Heare Mermaides Singing": Embodiments of (Acoustic) Pleasure and Danger in the Modern West

LINDA PHYLLIS AUSTERN

52

(53)

3. Devils, Daydreams, and Desire: Siren Traditions and Musical Creation in the Central-Southern Andes

HENRY STOBART

105

(35)

4. "Sweet aluring harmony": Heavenly and Earthly Sirens in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literary and Visual Culture

ELENA LAURA CALOGERO

140

(36)

5. The Sirens, the Epicurean Boat, and the Poetry of Praise

STEPHEN M. BUHLER

176

(18)

6. "Longindyingcall": Of Music, Modernity, and the Sirens

LAWRENCE KRAMER

194

(22)

7. Russian Rusalkas and Nationalism: Water, Power, and Women

INNA NARODITSKAYA

216

(34)

8. Rheinsirenen: Loreley and Other Rhine Maidens

ANNEGRET FAUSER

250

(23)

9. The Mermaid of the Meyhane: The Legend of a Greek Singer in a Turkish Tavern

JOHN MORGAN O'CONNELL

273

(21)

10. Siren Serenades: Music for Mami Wata and Other Water Spirits in Africa

HENRY JOHN DREWAL WITH CHARLES GORE AND MICHELLE KISLIUK

294

(23)

11. The Navel, the Corporate, the Contradictory: Pop Sirens at the Twenty-first Century

THOMASIN LAMAY AND ROBIN ARMSTRONG

317

(32)

12. The Cocktail Siren in David Lynch's Blue Velvet

JEONGWON JOE

349

(22)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

371

(38)

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

409

(4)

INDEX

413

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Summary

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