Turkish and Hungarian-Gypsy Styles

Abstract

Turks and Hungarians were regarded as un(der)civilized and exotic Others by western Europeans in the late eighteenth century, and their musics were largely represented through very similar stylistic means. This chapter explores how Turkish and Hungarian-Gypsy topics nonetheless carried different cultural associations, namely to military Janissary music and toverbunkosdance music, respectively. These associations determined the genres (solo, chamber, orchestral; private vs. public) in which each style was evoked as well as the syntactical positioning ofalla turca,all’ongarese, andalla zingareserepresentations within multimovement works. Beyond their compositional implications, the meanings of these styles may also have influenced performance practice.