Listening to Others: Eighteenth-Century Encounters in Polynesia and Their Reception in German Musical Thought

Abstract

The article observes two shifts in Enlightenment ideas about the power of music. First, although neo-Platonist thought declined in significance towards the end of the eighteenth century, ideas about musical agency continued to be espoused about non-Europeans. Second, music came to be seen as a potentially dangerous rather than ameliorative force. Focusing on European encounters with Polynesia during the Cook voyages, the article partially attributes these shifts to scholars' increased engagement with non-European music and the challenges posed to aesthetics by the cross-cultural encounter. The article argues that the performative use of music gave rise to new ethnomusicological insights yet also exposed the susceptibility of Europeans to the instrumental effects of non-European music. German scholars responded by minimizing the sophistication and emotional content of Polynesian music, a gesture that would be preserved in nineteenth-century musicological thought.

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