Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections (review)

Up until the 1990s, studies of "exoticism" seemed like a fringe interest in a marginal aspect of nineteenth-century music. Then the effects of culture theory and postcolonial studies began to be felt in musicology and the whole field took a sharp critical turn. Ralph Locke was one of the first to apply postcolonial critique to opera studies in his groundbreaking "Constructing the Oriental 'Other': Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila," which explored cultural-political subtexts and strategies for creating audience identification, alienation and desire (Cambridge Opera Journal 3, no. 3 [November 1991]: 261-302). Since then he has continued to think about many more aspects of exoticism, some of which bear a surprising relationship with the postcolonial angle. His most recent articles have dealt with the complexity and breadth of this phenomenon, the multiple and sometimes conflicting readings it necessarily engenders, and the intellectual need to be freed of ideological and methodological constraints in exploring it, partly in response to the danger of criticism's morphing into political doctrine.

The long road traveled since the article on Samson et Dalila has resulted in the present monograph, which is a comprehensive survey of three centuries of exoticism framed by a highly flexible yet incisive theoretical approach. The historical narrative is in the second and longer part, and it ranges over many art and popular musical genres with special focus on stage works and opera in particular. Orientalism and depiction of Gypsies get much attention, partly because of Locke's specialty, but also, no doubt, because of the dominance of these types of exoticism in the nineteenth century. The main theoretical discussion is concentrated in the shorter first part of the book, and this allows Locke to refer back in his survey to theoretical matters without loss of narrative flow. The very readable text is clearly aimed at a diverse group of scholars, musicians, and concertgoers. Theoretical terms (both musical and cultural) are helpfully explained and even the most complicated ideas are communicated in clear and jargon-free language.

The book is best summarized by the big issues it raises. The first and most pervasive one is also the least controversial. Exoticism, according to Locke, is first of all a matter of aesthetics and perception. Imitation of non-Western musical cultures constitute only one exoticist strategy among several, and scholarship should therefore not depend exclusively on a "style-only" paradigm (Locke's term) for its critique of exoticism. Locke offers instead a "full-context" paradigm that includes any music which takes part in the communication of exoticism. In his very first music example, taken from Handel's Belshazzar (1745), Locke points to comical musical effects that do not evoke Middle Eastern music in any way, yet pointedly portray a stereotypically farcical "Eastern" despot (pp. 90-96). At the very least, then, a full-context paradigm allows more music to be interpreted as exoticism. But this, in turn, may also broaden our historical perspective, for, as the first two chapters of part 2 clearly demonstrate, the communication of ethnic stereotypes started well before the notion of coleur locale and the fashion for exotic styles (cf. chaps. 5 and 6).

Locke's second major proposition is that exoticism can be politically and psychologically elaborate, especially in thoughtful artworks, and therefore its discussion demands many perspectives and cannot be limited to negative stereotypes. Moreover, if exoticism is not all bad, then in the present intellectual climate some positive aspects need to be highlighted if not rehabilitated. A full-context paradigm should allow oppositions and contradictions to coexist, because they have done so historically. In his chronological survey Locke starts this potentially controversial rehabilitation with a widely-accepted fact: exotic works are often also endotic critiques. Thus, while the abovementioned Belshazzar oratorio can be read as subtly justifying imperialist expansion (it is about "liberating" the local populace from the yoke of irrational Eastern despotism), in its day it may well have been understood as a critique of...