My presentation considers the many benefits that can be gained from expanding the canon to include music by marginalized composers. Those benefits go beyond the discovery of new repertoire. Canons, after all, can be analytical as well as repertorial, dictating not only the music we explore but also the tools we use to explore it, and these two types of canons are intertwined. Expanding the repertoire we analyze forces us to expand the way we analyze.

I make this case by focusing on the songs of two women composers: Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) and Marie Franz (1828-1891). Making sense of Boulanger's songs requires carefully attending to musical texture — a parameter that has often been feminized and viewed as merely decorative — and recognizing that texture, as much as harmony and melody, can create musical form. The songs of Marie Franz demonstrate the limitations of an analytical approach that places a premium on musical complexity. Franz's songs don't radically distort conventions or make strenuous demands on performers, but they are nonetheless deeply affecting. To understand why, we must be alert to the expressive power of the subtlest details.

I end with a personal reflection on one of the greatest discoveries I have made from expanding my repertorial and analytical canons: working to shine a light on marginalized song composers has broadened my view of what it means to be a music theorist, showing me the necessity of accessibility and collaboration.