Orientalist Paradigm in European Music of the 18th–19th Centuries

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the specific features of musical Orientalism in the European tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries through an analysis of the modal, rhythmic, timbral, and dramaturgical means by which the image of the East as the “Other” was constructed in musical art. The methodological framework of the research is based on historical-conceptual and hermeneutic approaches, as well as comparative analysis of factual data, drawing on the works of Chang Yu-Chi, Chung-yuan Chang, R. Golianek, M. Collins, H. M. Miller, E. Ziter, J. Moran, and others. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the interpretation of musical Orientalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as an artistically constructed phenomenon formed within a Western aesthetic and ideological system, rather than as a direct reflection of Eastern musical traditions. Orientalist styles are examined as conditional acoustic markers of exoticism that function independently of specific ethnocultural sources and do not require ethnographic accuracy. Conclusions. Musical Orientalism in European culture of the 18th and 19th centuries emerged as a conventional artistic model generated by Western aesthetic and ideological frameworks. The image of the “East” in music was largely imaginary and functioned as a symbol of exoticism and otherness. The so-called “Eastern” styles – Turkish, Chinese, Indian – were employed as interchangeable signs not oriented toward ethnographic authenticity. In operatic and academic music of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Orientalist stylistics often reinforced the hierarchy of “self” and “other,” assigning ethnic coloring to secondary characters, while principal protagonists remained within a universal European musical language. At the same time, certain trends, notably the Hungarian style, demonstrate the possibility of a more autonomous development of “foreign” material within the European tradition. Overall, the evolution of musical Orientalism reflects broader sociocultural transformations of the modern era: a movement from romanticised aesthetic fascination with the image of the East toward its systematic ideological and cultural instrumentalisation within Western artistic thought.