与美国全国大众广播（NPR）的周末节目版如出一辙！
 
"Savvy, sympathetic ... essential and insightful study of a woman’s unsung place in the closed world of classical music." —The Wall Street Journal
 
《如蜜般的声音：古典音乐里，被遗忘的女性》讲述了八位伟大作曲家不为人知的故事，带着读者从十七世纪佛罗伦斯的麦第奇家族（Medici）看到1940年至1941年中的伦敦大轰炸。
 
历史学家Anna Beer不只探索这八位杰出艺术家的生活和作品，还提出尖锐的问题，质疑她们的后代，为何到今日还是对她们的成就保持沉默。为什么我们到现在依然无法听到Hensel的钢琴作品“The Year”、Caccini的独唱曲与Boulanger的Psalm 130？
 
《如蜜般的声音》是一本令人期待以久的书，书里赞颂了一直以来被忽视的伟大音乐家，多层次且鼓舞人心地呈现了这些艺术家的努力与成就，要让世人看见、听见值得成为文化遗产的她们。
 
书中收录的作曲家包括Francesca Caccini、Barbara Strozzi、Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre、Marianna Martines、Fanny Hensel (原家族姓为Mendelssohn)、Clara Schumann、Lili Boulanger 与 Elizabeth Maconchy。
 
好评
"I am constantly in search of books that explore the lives of women who have been dismissed or overlooked by history, and this is what makes Anna Beer's latest book a total godsend. SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music is an intoxicating historical examination of the way gender has shaped what we consider to be canonical. While reading, it became alarmingly clear to me that we're missing out as a culture because prolific female virtuosos like Francesca Caccini, Clara Schumann, and Marianna Martines remain unknown to the masses. Beer's impassioned overview delves into the hopes, motivations, and struggles each woman faced as she attempted to pursue her vocation while coping with the "boys club" mentality of their respective music communities. SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS reminded me what a radical act it is to be a woman with an appetite to create."
—Lenny Letter
 
"Savvy, sympathetic ... essential and insightful study of a woman’s unsung place in the closed world of classical music."
—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Absorbing ... [Beer] writes with rich detail and sympathetic insight about [these women's] ambitious, adventurous battles to overcome barriers to creativity."
— Publishers Weekly
 
"One of the greatest wrongs done to these exceptionally talented women, who in many cases achieved international renown in their own openly sexist time, is that they have one after another been forgotten. Beer’s meticulously researched book is a vital step in the battle to overturn that ultimate injustice."
— The Observer
 
"A meticulously researched, engrossing read, vividly bringing its eight subjects to life. It should appeal not only to music connoisseurs but to anyone interested in social and cultural history - and women's place in it."
— Financial Times
 
"Both feminist analyst and fluent biographer, Beer makes engrossing and cogent cases for her subjects. She concludes that the proof of their art lies in the hearing and recommends recent recordings.”
— Booklist
 
"SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS, by cultural historian Anna Beer, is a timely bulwark against forgetting, and proffers a number of reasons for the fading of female artists’ reputations.... This book helps show why a narrative that insists that the good stuff will naturally and always rise to the surface is simplistic. It is important for us all, composers, musicians, audiences, men, women, society at large, that we seek out the best and most exciting creative voices, from wherever they may come."
—The Guardian
 
"This is a truly inspiring and fascinating book... Female composers today no longer need to feel there is anything to stop them creating music and forging a career as a composer — if there is still any doubt, then just read SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS."
—Debbie Wiseman MBE, Classic FM’s Composer in Residence
 
"A fascinating glimpse into the world of the women whose music we should know and be hearing in the canon."
—Charlotte Bray, winner of the Lili Boulanger Memorial Prize 2014 and composer of At the Speed of Stillness
 
"An important book... groundbreaking and entertaining... This book should be required reading not just for those interested in cultural history, but for anyone wishing to understand the perception of women in the modern era."
—Professor Steven Parissien, Director, Compton Verney
 
"A fascinating and refreshing rescue of a few well-chosen exemplars from the worthy but dull hands of musicologists. Anna Beer brings her telling selection of creative women to vivid life as she explores how they and their music fared in their social, political and sexual contexts: not least in how they cleverly manipulated their contemporary worlds to their best advantage. And when we get to the Mendelssohns, brother and sister, and the Schumanns, Clara and Robert, Beer takes a long overdue and welcome scalpel to the sentimental and foetid veil obscuring the realities of their famous relationships. Thrilling."
—Natalie Wheen, former presenter on BBC Radio and Classic FM
 
"This book is a delight. Eight striking composers are reinstated in musical history, thanks to Anna Beer’s energetic research and lively writing."
— Professor Nicola LeFanu, Department of Music, University of York
 
"Elegantly written, SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS offers compelling evidence of the prejudices against women composers’ aspirations across the centuries."
—Rhian Samuel, Composer and Professor Emeritus, City University London
 
"Anna Beer’s eloquent and passionately argued narrative builds on the most up-to-date scholarship and makes an irresistible case for listening again to the work of women who were among the most admired musicians of their age. Much more than simply an attempt to balance the historical record, SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand music’s power and the politics of gender and sexuality that promoted, shaped and silenced women’s compositional careers from the Renaissance to the twentieth century."
—Professor Daniel Grimley, Merton College, Oxford
 
关于作者
Anna Beer是一位文化历史学家也是Milton 与 Lady Bess Raleigh传记的作者。 她是牛津大学的访问学者，目前住在英国的牛津。