It is surely not insignificant that, in this entire discussion so far, the principal factor that continues to rear itself is the relationship between "orientalism" and speciousness. Ian's posts draw the most attention to this, in promoting the notion that, when a Western composer indulges in any kind of "orientalism", the results are more often than not compromised by the premise of "Westernised" - and therefore by implication false - views of "the East".

There are exceptions, of course, as Ian recognises, but leaving on one side the question of "imperialism" to which Ian briefly alludes in this context, there can be no denying that the majority of "orientalism" in Western composers' music has been based on the viewpoint of the outsider, aided and abetted by that dangerous thing that we call "a little knowledge".

No one appears yet to have mentioned that there is comparatively little "occidentalism" in the music of Eastern composers; whilst this is, of course, largely a matter of difference of emphasis in terms of music's respective rôles in Western and Eastern cultures, there has arguably been sufficient opening up of genuine Eastern musics to Western ears and vice versa in recent times to warrant questions about Eastern composers' attitudes to Western music.

A second point is that a fair amount of what has so far been discussed has centred on the notion of "exoticism", as though this inevitably goes hand in hand with the "orientalism" of the subject. I wonder if it might be both timely and instructive to seek to separate consideration of these two phenomena, in order to reveal more about the differences as well as the similarities of some of the results. "Exoticism" usually implies mystery, magic and fantasy with a dash of the "unknown" and the geographically remote to spice it up. It was therefore more easy fair game in the days when Debussy first turned eyes and ears to "the East" than is the case in our age when one can fly pretty much anywhere that one wants; there have also been vast swathes of non-musical (and musical) oriental scholarship published during that time, at least some of which ought to have stripped away certain misunderstandings and consequent false representations of things Eastern. We have accordingly reached a time when it could be argued that the very notion of "the East" should no longer conjure up ideas of "exoticism", at least in the ways and to the extent that it did in Debussy's time. Perhaps we should therefore also look at how - and the ways in and extent to which - attitudes to "exitocism" as well as "orientalism" in music have changed since the latter part of the 19th century.

Ian wisely wishes to keep Sorabji reasonably much in the background here, but his part-oriental roots nevertheless serve as a reminder that it would also be as well to look at the differences, if any, between the works of Western composers who have either worked extensively in the East or are from Eastern or part-Eastern backgrounds and those by composers wholly of Western origin and confinement.

Best,

Alistair

I did start tentatively in this direction in the thread on Isang Yun, but I'm not sure there are enough around who know his music well enough (ie. better than I do, since my acquaintance with it is very recent) to comment. It's significant of course that most of the prominent "Westernising" music from Asia has come from regions (Korea, Japan, to some extent China) which weren't subject to long-term colonial occupation.

It may now be clear that the "orientalism" of many composers in the 19th and early 20th century arose from a "colonialist" attitude towards the cultures they were appropriating, and I do think it's as well to note that on the whole such strategies would now be rightly considered unacceptably patronising if not insulting, but we would also do well to look at how those composers themselves thought about it, as well as the fact that they would have taken the relationships involved in colonialism for granted just like everyone in that society did, with the exception of a small minority of advanced political thinkers - among whom it has never been usual (even now, as we can easily see) to count very many musicians, who can't reasonably be held to "higher" standards than the communities they lived and worked in, unless one is of the opinion that being an artist ought to confer some kind of angelic aura on a person. In other words we can criticise whatever use of "orientalising" tendencies in music of the past from our present standpoint, such that we would look askance at any composer writing a piece called "Impressions de l'orient" or whatever in 2007 but applying the same standards to a composer writing in 1907 is in a sense to deny the historical changes which have occurred in the meantime. Our consciousness has been shaped by the collapse of the old colonial empires and indeed by the liberation movements which were instrumental in bringing it about, while to understand the music of the past one always has to some extent to put oneself into a different frame of mind: the St Matthew Passion is pretty incomprehensible unless you have some idea of 18th century Lutheran Christianity (which is why the Bach specialist Masaaki Suzuki regularly accompanies his concerts in Japan with lectures about it). The late 19th/early 20th century composer is likely to have thought not much more than "here's some interesting and strange material, let's see what we can do with it" rather than examining the wider historical/social/political implications of doing so. Should the music be censored for that reason? I once read an article by John Potter suggesting that anti-Semitic references in the texts of Bach cantatas be removed and replaced, which struck me as being a more insulting thing to do than leaving them in.

I'd broadly agree with you, Richard. As the parentheses in my previous post indicate, once you get into a cycle of using orientalism (necessarily accompanied by occidentalism) as an indiscriminate brickbat, it becomes very hard to stop bashing one side, and then the other. This is not to say that there aren't objectionable cultural, social, political processes that find their roots in 'exoticism' (in either direction), but not all examples of 'exoticism' are necessarily objectionable. I think it's much more interesting, for example, to consider the structures of identification and differentiation, and the impact they have on music and story, within Die Entführung aus dem Serail than how much of it offends our 21st-century sensibilities.

Occidentalism - try the Butterfly Lovers Concerto. The  opening is strangely close to the opening of Daphnis and Chloe, one of the themes bears a striking resemblance to the opening of Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto, but as a whole it just sounds like a bad piece of Western music trying to be oriental.

Incidentally, some Korean students of mine heard a little flute and piano piece by Hamilton Harty called In Ireland and said it sounded Korean!

No-one (Ian?) has yet addressed my point about the Chinese (performers) appropriating Western music, at least as important, I would suggest, as Western composers of the first half of the C20th including quasi-Orientalisms in their work!

And finally - Reiner, welcome back!

To be fair on Said, he does say (I'm thinking of Culture and Imperialism) that realising the implicit acceptance of colonialist ideology in artworks of that period doesn't lessen their profundity or importance as artworks, but it's nevertheless something to be aware of in a close reading of those texts - otherwise a tendency towards nostalgia (for fictitious "vanished" and/or "exotic" times as well as places) can easily arise. We (I mean the people having this discussion here) are surely sophisticated enough to see that situation for what it is, such that "discussions" of such subjects don't always have to begin with the sound of axes being ground. Or is that too "facile" a way of seeing things?

I have lots more on the "East-West thing", t_i_n (about half a PhD's worth, in fact!) as it concerns Polish and Hungarian composition in the 1960s; mostly from the point of view of Westerners looking East (it's what I know best...), but there are the beginnings of analytical attempts to assess the manner in which those Western markers that Panufnik mentions were absorbed. Impossible to nail down, of course, I'm really opening up the inquiry here rather than settling any debate. (When I say "I've not studied this in depth" in a previous post, I should clarify that I mean I haven't attempted to look at any of this through Polish/Hungarian eyes as it were.)

The Warsaw Autumn of 1959, just before the sonorists really found their swing, as Polish music is on this cusp of deciding what to do with avant gardism from the West, is really interesting - not least because there was a large British press presence that year for some reason. I have all the reviews from then, but they're mostly copied in pencil into notebooks. I'll get round to typing them up and will send them to you at some point.

You're absolutely right that Eastern European studies have become an acceptable face of orientalism* to some degree, although the kind of orientalism is hugely complicated by the fact that countries like Poland were themselves occidentalised by a colonial Russia (a point, incredibly, overlooked in almost all musical approaches to the subject that I know of, which says something itself...). It's interesting to me because it's not (as the wannabe Said of Eastern Europe, Larry Wolff, would have it) the same as British colonialism in the Middle East, but pulls in several directions at once.

(*Just as jokes about Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians are one of the few outposts of publicly acceptable racism.)

No rush at all - I have lots else on my plate first! But maybe when a thesis is ready I could have a look ...

I'm ashamed to admit I don't know anything about Larry Wolff. Thought I was the first person who'd discussed Eastern European studies in terms of a comparison to orientalism.  There goes my claim to fame.

sob sob