Imagining Native America in Music
Michael V. Pisani
Abstract
This book offers a comprehensive look at musical representations of native America from the pre-colonial past through the American West and up to the present. The discussion covers a wide range of topics, from the ballets of Lully in the court of Louis XIV to popular ballads of the nineteenth century; from eighteenth-century British-American theater to the musical theater of Irving Berlin; from chamber music by Dvôrák to film music for Apaches in Hollywood Westerns. The book demonstrates how European colonists and their descendants were fascinated by the idea of race and ethnicity in music, an ... More
This book offers a comprehensive look at musical representations of native America from the pre-colonial past through the American West and up to the present. The discussion covers a wide range of topics, from the ballets of Lully in the court of Louis XIV to popular ballads of the nineteenth century; from eighteenth-century British-American theater to the musical theater of Irving Berlin; from chamber music by Dvôrák to film music for Apaches in Hollywood Westerns. The book demonstrates how European colonists and their descendants were fascinated by the idea of race and ethnicity in music, and it examines how music contributed to the complex process of cultural mediation. The book reveals how certain themes and metaphors changed over the centuries and shows how much of this “Indian music”, which was and continues to be largely imagined, alternately idealized and vilified the peoples of native America.
Keywords:
musical representations,
native America,
American West,
popular ballads,
British-American theater,
musical theatre,
Irving Berlin,
European colonists,
ethnicity,
race
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300108934 |
| Published to Yale Scholarship Online: October 2013 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300108934.001.0001 |
