West Meets East: A Composer's View

A brief historical survey of creative interactions and (mis)appropriations on the part of European composers toward music from "other" cultures offers examples that range from the rage for "Turkish" evocations in 18th-century Vienna (Mozart, Beethoven) and the French fascination with Javanese and Balinese gamelan (Debussy, Messiaen), to the more direct involvement of 20th century composers with the whole array of world music. Drawing on his extensive immersion in musics of Indonesia and India, Gerald Levinson also provides a first-person account of his own explorations of "transcultural" composition.