Pablo Massa wrote:

>That's funny.  Musicologists tracing sexual profiles?.

This trend in musicology has been extremely fashionable for the last two or
three decades.  Gender issues, gay/lesbian issues - all that was very, very
much en vogue.  Actually, it's beginning to abate a bit, and it is becoming
gradually acceptable to return to less speculative source-based research.

>Sounds like engineers researching on the oedipus complex.

Why? Don't you think Britten would have chosen different libretti for his
operas had he been hetero? The question why a composer wrote a particular
piece is musicologically valid.  If his/her sexual orientation had anything
to do with the circumstances of the writing of the piece then one has to
mention that.  The point is that *people* write music and one never knows
in advance what in their life affects their work.

-Margaret Mikulska