Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780sû1940s: Portrayal of the East

Filling a significant gap in current scholarship, the fourteen original essays that make up this volume individually and collectively reflect on the relationship between music and orientalism in the British Empire over the course of the long nineteenth century.The book is in four themed sections. 'Portrayal of the East' traces the routes from encounter to representation and restores the Orient to its rightful place in histories of Orientalism. 'Interpreting Concert Music' looks at one of the principal forms in which Orientalism could be brought to an eager and largely receptive - yet sometimes resistant - mass market. 'Words and Music' investigates the confluence of musical and Orientalist themes in different genres of writing, including criticism, fiction and travel writing. Finally, 'The Orientalist Stage' discusses crucial sites of Orientalist representation - music theatre and opera - as well as tracing similar phenomena in twentieth-century Hindi cinema. These final chapters examine the rendering of the East as 'unachievable and unrecognizable' for the consuming gaze of the western spectator.Contents: Introduction, Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon. Portrayal of the East: Encountering the other, redefining the self: Hindostannie airs, Haydn's folk song settings and the 'common practice' style, Nicholas Cook; Mamia, Ammani and other Bayadères: Europe's portrayal of India's temple dancers, Joep Bor; Musical renaissance and its margins in England and India, 1874-1914, Martin Clayton; Mizrakh, Jewish music and the journey to the East, Philip V. Bohlman/Ruth Davis. Interpreting Concert Music: Granville Bantock and the Orient in the Midlands, Fiona Richards; 'An inoffensive thing': Elgar, The Crown of India and Empire, Corissa Gould; Patriotic vigour or voice of the Orient? Re-reading Elgar's Caractacus, Laura Upperton; Negotiating orientalism: the Kaccheri and the critic in colonial South India, Lakshmi Subramanian. Words and Music: 'Violent passions' and 'inhuman excess': simplicity and the representation of music in 19th-century British travel literature, Bennett Zon; Creative women and 'exoticism' at the last fin-de-siècle, Sophie Fuller; Tom-Toms, dream-fugues and poppy juice: East meets West in 19th-century fiction, Phyllis Weliver. The Orientalist Stage: Chu Chin Chow and orientalist musical theatre in Britain during the First World War, William Everett; A parallel reading of the 'Oriental' and South American opera libretti set by Sir Henry Bishop, Claire Mabilat; Musicking the other: orientalism in the Hindi cinema, Greg Booth. Index.About the Author: Martin Clayton is Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the Open University, UK. Bennett Zon is Professor in the Department of Music at Durham University, UK.