The Chinese and Javanese Influences in Works That Exemplify Early Twentieth-Century Musical “Exoticism”
| dc.contributor.advisor | Boss, Jack | |
| dc.contributor.author | Xu, Jiayi | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-01-10T14:14:43Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-01-10T14:14:43Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-01-10 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In Western music of the early twentieth century, pentatonic elements are particularly prominent when composers emulate Chinese music. Claude Debussy, for instance, drew upon Eastern musical styles in works such as “Pagodes” (from the collection Estampes of 1903). According to most scholars (E. Robert Schmitz 1950 and Sylvia Parker 2012), the historical record demonstrates that Debussy’s inspiration for composing “Pagodes” was the sound of the Javanese Gamelan in the Exhibition Universelle in Paris in 1889. There is also a historical description about Debussy’s writing to show his connection to Chinese music. Debussy himself expressed an awareness of Chinese musical practices: Roger Nichols has cited a newspaper article written by the composer published in February 1913 in which Debussy mentions that in the 1889 exhibition, the performance of the Annamite theater from the central Eastern region of Vietnam was influenced by Chinese practices. Debussy’s awareness of Chinese—as well as Javanese—music will propel my discussion of how to use a mathematical method to determine the musical character of a region of the world, and more specifically, to demonstrate how an analytical method based on the J function may make the connection between “Pagodes” and the “Chinese” style in the early twentieth century. The conventional wisdom regarding “Pagodes” is that its inspiration is taken from Javanese gamelan. In the later parts of my thesis, I will show that the intersection between “Pagodes” and Javanese gamelan is mainly in the rhythmic and textural aspects. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29213 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | Chinese musical style | en_US |
| dc.subject | Debussy | en_US |
| dc.subject | Exoticism | en_US |
| dc.subject | Mathematical method | en_US |
| dc.title | The Chinese and Javanese Influences in Works That Exemplify Early Twentieth-Century Musical “Exoticism” | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | School of Music and Dance | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | masters | |
| thesis.degree.name | M.A. |
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