Queering Schubert’s “Der Atlas”: reflections on positionality and close reading

Bretherton, David (2023) Queering Schubert’s “Der Atlas”: reflections on positionality and close reading. In, Lee, Gavin S.K. (ed.) Queer Ear: Remaking Music Theory. 1 ed. New York. Oxford University Press, pp. 75-104. (doi:10.1093/oso/9780197536766.003.0004).

Abstract

Adopting a broad, intersectional approach to queer studies, this chapter reflects on the impact that the author’s own queer and disabled positionality has had on their interpretation of Franz Schubert’s “Der Atlas” over a twenty-year period. Following a detailed music analysis of the song, the author offers various readings (“Surface,” “Straight,” “Gay,” and “Disabled”), evaluates each in turn with reference to their own experiences, and—given Schubert’s reported disabilities and the suggestion that he was homosexual—speculates on the possibility that the song could be a coded autobiographical statement. These four readings are then queered, before an attempted “Queer Reading” concludes that, regardless of Schubert’s illnesses and sexuality, the song’s message is deeply conservative: submit to the powerful and know your station. The chapter concludes by arguing for queer music theory to embrace subjectivity, ambiguity, and multiple readings, and that the queer reading of a composition should not be considered contingent on its composer having a queer sexuality.

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