Conveners
Knowing the Other: Sounds and Music in Travelogues and the Reception of the Exotic
- Paola Dessรฌ (Universitร di Padova)
Description
The round table serves as an important step in the research examining world sound and musical cultures from the medieval to modern ages using travel sources, which is the focus of the "Echos. Sound Echosystems in Travelogues" project presented here. The knowledge about odeporic literature has significantly advanced the historical reconstruction of the musical traditions and auditory ecosystems of cultures that did not transmit their musical heritage to us via systematic notation. The anthropological approach, emphasizing the traveler's subjectivity as an investigator of different worlds, has yielded significant findings (Dessรฌ 2010; Irving 2010; Restani 2017; Dessรฌ 2021; Olley 2023; Dessรฌ-Pintimalli 2025). It is now beneficial to examine the reception of these materials, considering the reconfiguration of knowledge on otherness within established musical repertoires, such as Venetian opera. This is the focus of the new project "Exotic in Music in Venetian Opera of the 17th and 18th Centuries and its Diffusion in Europe" proposed by the same team of "Echos". These advancements unveil a previously unexamined area of inquiry, centered on comparing travelers' accounts and analyzing the reception of features deemed "exotic" within the opera.
Paola Dessรฌ with Elena Murarotto and Andrea Pintimalli present the project โEchos. Sound Ecosystems in Traveloguesโ, a web application inspired by FAIR principles (ยฉ2021). Developed by a team of musicologists and computer scientists, Echos collects and organises literary descriptions, musical scores, and images of musical events documented in travel accounts from the 14th to the 19th century. The platform provides a comprehensive overview of the sonic dimension across different historical and geographical contexts, which can also be explored through an interactive map. Then she presents the outline of the new project promoted by the same Echos team: โThe Exotic in Music in Venetian Opera of the 17th and 18th Centuriesโ. This research is in continuity with the studies developed by Echos as it aims to investigate how testimonies about music and 'other' sound cultures were received, transformed, and represented in Venetian Opera in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Andrea Pintimalli examines the case study of the medieval travelogue with the highest number of visited locations: the riแธฅla of Abลซ สฟAbd Allฤh Ibn Baแนญแนญลซแนญa (1304-1368/1377). This talk will begin with a concise introduction of the author in his roles as a jurist, traveller, and storyteller, followed by an exploration of the journey within its cultural, musical, historical contexts. An anthropological reading and a comparative analysis of the musical lexicon in specific passages of the text are proposed, both grounded in the source census from the โEchosโ platform.
Elena Murarotto explores the ethnographic legacy of Venetian explorer Giovanni Giacomo Miani, focusing on the musical testimonies recorded during his first journey along the Nile (1859โ1860). Through his travel diary, drawings intended for a Universal History of Music, and a substantial collection of artifacts, now preserved in various European museums, Miani documented the soundscapes and performative practices of the communities he encountered. This paper offers an integrated reading of Mianiโs textual, visual, and material records, examined in dialogue with other contemporary Venetian travel sources.
Chiara Casarin focuses on the reception of "exoticizing tendencies" (Locke 2020) from the privileged viewpoint of opera performed in Venice throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By examining the case study of Il colore fa la regina by Matteo Noris and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, the presentation investigates the production and reception of the exoticizing processes through an analysis of the spectacular media (musical text, libretto, scenography, costumes) and their perception within the broader social context. Special emphasis will be placed on reconstructing the various discourses surrounding the โother,โ the relationships between specific stagings, and the cultural representations of otherness that were widespread in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Venice.
- Paola Dessรฌ, Elena Murarotto, Andrea Pintimalli: Global Sound Ecosystems and Stage Exoticism: The Echos App and the Research on the Exotic Reception in Venetian Opera
- Andrea Pintimalli: Ibn Baแนญแนญลซแนญaโs Riแธฅla: a musical and historical-anthropological interpretation
- Elena Murarotto: Giovanni Mianiโs ethnographic legacy along the Nile: travel diary, illustrations and musical instruments...
