Orientalism in Music

Ron Payne (24th April, 2021)

Whatever you think of Edward Said's diatribe it is easy to find plenty of musical  material, mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries which could be described as exercises in ‘orientalism'. 

1. Albert Ketelbey - In a Persian Market (1920)

Albert Ketelbey ought , with a name like that, to be Turkish but he was born in Birmingham . He specialised in third rate classical picture postcard music, starting with In a Monastery Garden, which naturally made him Britain's first millionaire composer and later a first favourite for Your Hundred Best Tunes. Among his effusions were In a Persian Market, In a Chinese Temple Garden and In the Mystic Land of Egypt. All of them are equally enjoyable. Let us start with the first: things can only get better ! 

2. Gustav Holst - Beni Mora (1912)

Holst was interested in Hindu Mythology and had his Indian period, producing Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, the chamber opera Savitri and Two Eastern Pictures. But for comparison here is his Oriental Suite, Beni Mora,  which apparently drew hisses when the audience realised that were not being offered oriental fare quite as they expected it. The third section introduces a riff which he heard an Algerian musician intone continuously for 2 1/2 hours. Here is the whole suit played by the Istanbul Philharmonic; which I suppose is a kind of validation: 

3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Turkish Rondo (1783)

There was a craze for imitations of Turkish Military Music in late 18th century Vienna. Haydn, Mozart , Beethoven and others wrote ‘ Turkish Music' and the style is instantly recognisable. This is the original Turkish Rondo (1783)

This is a short piece by Beethoven, written in 1811, and suitable for an encore: Rondo Alla Turca (Turkish March). It was written as incidental music for a play and is therefore uncomplicated. (The 9th symphony also contains a ‘ Turkish' section in the finale.) 

Here is a rather more sophisticated take by Mozart, the Turkish Rondo:. It is the 3rd movement of his 11th piano sonata, written around 1783. 

4. Carl Maria Von Weber - Overtures/Abu Hassan (1811)

Carl Maria von Weber who died of TB in London in 1826, was one of the first generation of Romantic composers. He wrote this in 1811, the same year as Beethoven's March: 

It clearly starts in the Turkish style. The story is from the Thousand and One Nights and therefore of Arab origin, but who was going to quibble ? 

Austria faced Turkey as a powerful and threatening neighbour, hence perhaps the fascination. 

Russia had other exotic neighbours to the south- east and east and, far from being threatened, was gobbling them up by the 19th century. For many Western Europeans Russian music as a whole was probably exotic when it was first heard, but here is something with a specific oriental intent: 

5. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade (1888)

This is another piece of music based on The Arabian Nights and so outside the direct scope of Russia's imperial expansion (although the name Scheherazade is Persian, and Persia was very much in Russia's sights). It is of course a gorgeous, rather lush, piece of orchestral  writing with the usual ‘oriental' flavour which can almost stand in for anywhere Islamic. 

6.  Mily Balakirev - Islamey (1869)

Balakirev was a Russian nationalist and conceived the piece on a trip to the Caucasus, where he was much taken by the land and the people. Islamey was a local dance tune, another tune was known among the Crimean Tartars. The technical facility displayed in the opening and elsewhere is stunning: 

7.  Alexander Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880)

I have chosen this rather than the better known Polovtsian Dances . Borodin was a Chemistry professor who didn't have enough time for composition, so that his works were often finished by others , but he seems to have completed this one. It was intended to celebrate the silver anniversary of the reign of Alexander II, who had done much to expand Russian territory eastward, so the subject had a political point. 

According to Borodin: "In the silence of the monotonous steppes of Central Asia is heard the unfamiliar sound of a peaceful Russian song. From the distance we hear the approach of horses and camels and the bizarre and melancholy notes of an oriental melody. A caravan approaches, escorted by Russian soldiers, and continues safely on its way through the immense desert. It disappears slowly. The notes of the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony, which dies away as the caravan disappears in the distance."

8.  Edvard Grieg - Arabian Dance (1867)

This is more incidental music, a predecessor of film music, for a performance of  Ibsen's verse play Peer  Gynt. Grieg was a home with this sort of thing where a good tune will do a lot of the work.

9. Carl Nielsen - Aladdin: Oriental Festive March (1919)

The Danish composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) was rather more successful than Grieg in building large structures ( 6 symphonies , 3 concertos) but this is again instrumental music, for a play presented in 1919: 

Once again the subject is from the Arabian Nights. It is interesting - and sometimes amusing - to hear the ‘oriental' inflections interacting Nielsen's normal musical habits. 

10. W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan - The Mikado (1885)

This was the fourteenth collaboration between G &S. It was presented in 1885 and has been going strong ever since. Gilbert claimed he was inspired by the fall of a Japanese sword on a wall in his study and a visit to a Japanese village temporarily located in Knightsbridge, but the story has been discounted.Sullivan was interested enough in authenticity to incorporate one genuine Japanese tune.Nevertheless it is only nominally about Japan, being a lightly disguised satire of the then current England. It has of course come under attack for being culturally insensitive: 

Ouch ! Those ain't no gentlemen and they're certainly not Japanese. But what can you do. 

It seems though that the very English satire can translate into Japanese. The town of Chichibu apparently got the joke.  

11.  Maurice Ravel - Scheherazade (1898)

Maurice Ravel was fascinated by Scheherazade and wrote a not very successful Overture of that name in 1898 , ten years after Rimsky-Korsakov's work. 1904 saw the performance of a setting of 3 free verse poems by his friend Tristan Klingsor , poems which were themselves inspired by Rimsky's work. This is the middle song , The Enchanted Flute , sung by the peerless Regine Crespin: 

12. Claude Debussy - Estampes- Pagodes (1903)

Ravel's contemporary Debussy was enthralled by the Javanese gamelan and dancing he saw at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris. In 1903 he tried to capture the sound of the percussion orchestra in this piano piece: 

13:  Benjamin Britten - The Prince of the Pagodas  (1957)

Britten transcribed the sound of the Gamelan in his 1957 music for the Royal Ballet. Britten had gone to Bali in 1956 and made an extensive study of the local Gamelan music. Logically it should go here as an authenticity respectful treatment of oriental music.