The Closeness of Distance

The roots of this interest in other cultures can be traced far back in the music of European art. Moriskan dances (Moorish dances) were highly popular during the Renaissance, and it was not long until the opera began presenting “exotic” settings: Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opéra-ballet Les indes galantes plays on different continents, from Persia to Peru, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Turkish opera”, The Abduction from the Seraglio, are eloquent examples. The nineteenth century expanded the borders by yet another considerable step. Claude Debussy found inspiration in Javanese gamelan music, while Gustav Mahler’s imagination was stimulated by audio recordings from China while working on The Song of the Earth.

Later, the European composers of the twentieth century were primarily interested in the structural aspects of non-European music, as was Cerha. Accordingly, he distanced himself from any mere “exotic sound stimulus”. Inspiration from distant cultures began weaving its way through his music as early as the 1950s. His Rubaijat, for example, are based upon the poems of Persian polymath Omar Khayyam. In the late 1980s, Cerha immersed himself in the music of the world in a particularly diverse way, regardless if the origins were in Arabia, Africa, or Papua New Guinea. His second string quartet is dedicated to music of indigenous cultures, while the Phantasiestück in C.’s Manier connects highly diverse musical cultures using a multilayered approach.Schriften: ein Netzwerk, Vienna 2001, p. 259