Musical Exoticism
Images and Reflections

This book surveys the vast and varied repertoire of Western musical works that portray exotic locales, exploring their persuasive and disturbing effects.

Ralph P. Locke (Author)

9780521349550, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 November 2011

440 pages
24.4 x 17 x 2.3 cm, 0.69 kg

'… Ralph Locke's new book provides not just academic specialists, but students and possibly general readers with a mature and fair-minded summary of musical exoticism … This might serve well as a textbook for an undergraduate module, or as initial reading for a (post)graduate seminar. For those coming at the topic for the first time, it represents a well designed and carefully balanced introduction. Everyone benefits from Locke's use of plain, readable language.' Matthew Head, Nineteenth-Century Music Review

A Japanese geisha, a Middle Eastern caravan, a Hungarian-'Gypsy' fiddler, Carmen flinging a rose at Don José - portrayals of people and places that are considered somehow 'exotic' have been ubiquitous from 1700 to today, whether in opera, Broadway musicals, instrumental music, film scores, or in jazz and popular song. Often these portrayals are highly stereotypical but also powerful, indelible and touching - or troubling. Musical Exoticism surveys the vast and varied repertoire of Western musical works that evoke exotic locales. It relates trends in musical exoticism to other trends in music, such as programme music and avant-garde experimentation, as well as to broader historical developments such as nationalism and empire. Ralph P. Locke outlines major trends in exotic depiction from the Baroque era onward, and illustrates these trends through close study of numerous exotic works, including operas by Handel and Rameau, Mozart's 'Rondo alla turca', 'Madame Butterfly' and 'West Side Story'.

Part I: 1. Music, the world, and the critic
2. Questions of value
3. Exoticism with and without exotic style
4. Who is 'Us'?: the national and/as the exotic, and the treatment of stereotypes
Part II: 5. Baroque portrayals of despots: ancient Babylon, Incan Peru
6. A world of exotic styles, 1750–1880
7. Exotic operas and two Spanish 'Gypsies'
8. Imperialism and 'the exotic Orient'
9. Exoticism in a modernist age (ca. 1890–1960)
10. Exoticism in a global age (ca. 1960 to today)
11. Epilogue: exotic works of the past, today.

Subject Areas: Techniques of music / music tutorials [AVS], Opera [AVGC9], Music [AV]