Representations of the Orient in Western Music

This book focuses on the cultural, political and religious representations of the Orient in Western Music. Nasser Al-Taee traces several threads in a vast repertoire of musical representations, focusing primarily on the images of violence and sensuality. Al-Taee argues that these prevailing traits are not only the residual manifestation of the Ottoman threat to Western Europe, but also the continuation of a long and complex history of fear and fascination towards the Orient and its Islamic religion. The study extends the range of Orientalism to cover eighteenth-century Austria, nineteenth-century Russia and twentieth-century America.