Music and Mirrored Hybridities

In early modern Europe, music-theatrical patterns of representing the foreign 'Other' helped shape relations with the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, hybridity must be understood as a dynamic practice playing with cultural blends and borrowings, albeit possibly (re-)producing inequalities, ambiguities, and cliches. Representations of Ottomans/Turks appear as musical features emerging out of vague inspirations derived from Ottoman/Turkish music, creating a particular sound that could be decoded as 'Ottoman' or 'Turkish' by contemporary listeners. This volume addresses the convergence of cultural communities on stage from early modern France to present-day Turkey, starting from the iconic 'Turkish scene' from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670).