Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:40:40.124Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Orientalism and Musical Knowledge: Lessons from Edward Said

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sindhumathi Revuluri
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Round Table: Edward Said and Musicology Today
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 141 , Issue 1 , 2016 , pp. 205 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 The Royal Musical Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

5 See above, note 1.

6 Said, Orientalism, 201–25.

7 Key texts reflecting on Said and Orientalism and dealing with musical exoticism include The Exotic in Western Music, ed. Jonathan Bellman (Boston, MA, 1998); W. Anthony Sheppard, Revealing Masks: Exotic Influences and Ritualized Performance in Modernist Music Theater (Berkeley, CA, 2001); Matthew Head, ‘Musicology on Safari: Orientalism and the Spectre of Postcolonial Theory’, Music Analysis, 22 (2003), 211–30; Timothy Taylor, Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World (Durham, NC, 2007); and Ralph Locke, Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections (Cambridge, 2009).

8 Among many other examples, see Edward W. Said, Musical Elaborations (New York, 1991), and idem, ‘The Empire at Work: Verdi's Aida’, Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1994), 111–32.

9 ‘L'histoire de la musique, à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, a fait de notables progrès. Elle ne sera pourtant point achevée avant que, étendant son champ d'action, elle ait compris dans son domaine l’étude des musiques extra-européennes. Bien différentes de celles aux formes desquelles nos races sont accoutumées depuis des siècles, celles-ci n'en sont pas moins dignes d’être écoutées par nous. Que ces arts soient inférieurs au nôtre, concédons-le, ou plutôt affirmons – le tout d'abord. Rien n'est plus naturel que cette vérité: l'Europe ayant toujours été le foyer principal de la civilisation humaine, il est tout simple que la musique qu'on y pratique ait acquis une supériorité à laquelle n'ont pu atteindre les peuples des autre parties du monde.’ Julien Tiersot, Notes d'ethnographie musicale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1905), i, 1 (my translation).

10 Matthew Head makes a similar point about the study of musical exoticism more generally when he writes: ‘Musicology domesticates orientalism as an area of research by folding it back into established frameworks of enquiry that ultimately render orientalism decorative’ (‘Musicology on Safari’, 218).

11 Said, Orientalism, 3.