Bennett Zon's Representing Non-Western Music in Nineteenth-Century Britain is the first book to situate non-Western music within the intellectual culture of nineteenth-century Britain. It covers many crucial issues -- race, orientalism, otherness, evolution -- and explores the influence of important anthropological theories on the perception of non-Western music. The book also considers a wide range of other writings of the period, from psychology and travel literature to musicology and theories of musical transcription, and it reflects on the historically problematic term "ethnomusicology." Representing Non-Western Music discusses such theories as noble simplicity, monogenism and polygenism, the comparative method, degenerationism, and developmentalism. Zon looks at the effect of evolutionism on the musical press, general music histories, and histories of national music. He also treats the work of Charles Samuel Myers, the first Britain to record non-Western music in the field, and explores how A. H. Fox Strangways used contemporary translation theory as an analogy for transcription in The Music of Hindostan (1914) to show that individuality can be retained by embracing foreign elements rather than adapting them to Western musical style.
Author(s): Bennett Zon
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 366
CONTENTS
......Page 8
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
......Page 10
PREFACE
......Page 12
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
......Page 18
INTRODUCTION. Humanizing the Musical Savage: Orientalism and Racism in the History of British Ethnomusicology......Page 20
Part One. Early Anthropological Influences......Page 34
1. Cultural Anthropology from the Late Eighteenth Century to the 1850s......Page 36
2. The Interplay of Anthropology and Music: Nineteenth-Century Travel Literature......Page 44
3. Music in the Literature of Anthropology from the 1780s to the 1860s......Page 67
Part Two. Musicology in Transition to Evolution......Page 88
4. Cultural Anthropology after Darwin......Page 90
5. From Travel Literature to Academic Writing: Anthropology in the Musical Press from the 1830s to the 1930s......Page 97
6. Non-Western Music in General Music Histories: Progression toward Evolution......Page 114
7. Histories of National Music (1): Henry Chorley and the Anthropological Background......Page 133
8. Histories of National Music (2): Carl Engel and the Influence of Tylor......Page 148
9. Overcoming Spencer: Late-Century Theories of the Origin of Music......Page 164
Part Three. Individualism and the Influence of Evolution: Charles Samuel Myers and the Role of Psychology......Page 176
10. Charles Samuel Myers and the General Movement toward
Individualism......Page 178
11. From Individualism to Individual Differences......Page 196
12. The Psychological Writings and the Place of Evolution and Individual Differences......Page 215
13. Myers’s Ethnomusicological Writings......Page 237
Part Four. Retaining Cultural Identity: A. H. Fox Strangways and the
Problems of Transcription......Page 266
14. Transcription and the Problems of Translating Musical Culture
......Page 268
15. A. H. Fox Strangways and Attitudes Toward Song Translation......Page 280
16. Fox Strangways and The Music of Hindostan......Page 296
EPILOGUE: The “Ethnomusicology” in Long Nineteenth-Century Representations of Non-Western Music......Page 310
WORKS CITED
......Page 322
INDEX
......Page 352
