Introduction: What is a Composer's Work? Music and Context
The goal of this presentation, to have a real impact on the students' understanding, must be to show that the artistic result of the work Aladdin is not the product of a mere aesthetic desire or a momentary practical need, but rather the result of a worldview deeply rooted in the temporal reality of the composer.
It is a fascinating but also overwhelming task: we, the inhabitants of the present (2025), in a specific country (Germany), with a culture and worldview shaped by long social, economic, and cultural processes, look back into the past to understand the work of a man (Nielsen) who lived in another time (1918-1919), in another culture, and another country. Influenced by the currents of his era, he observed what we call the "Orient" to represent it musically, based on a text by the Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger, published in 1805, inspired by the story of Aladdin from One Thousand and One Nights, whose first English edition appeared between 1700 and 1721.
Of course, we can sit at the piano, examine the score, and ask ourselves what elements are represented. We can describe, analyze, and theorize about the musical elements, how the composition uses these elements to convey a sonic image that is understandable to the listener and fulfills certain expectations.
Ultimately, we can describe and define what is represented, direct the listener's attention to a melody, a rhythm, or an instrument, with the promise that, upon listening to the work again, they will recognize certain passages and say: "Here the double basses represent the steps of the prisoners."
But what value does this have for us? Isn't it the same as looking at a hundred-year-old painting and saying: "There's a cat, here's a person eating, the dark colors show it's a night scene"? What is the point of performing music from the past if we don't deeply understand it in its context? Why do we bring works from the past if we cannot learn from them, whether by comparing their creation context with our own present reality? Is a performance devoid of meaning worth it? And what do we do with works that challenge our current worldview? Should we remove the movement titles from Carl Nielsen's Aladdin? Should we edit them or perhaps add a footnote that absolves us of responsibility for a past reality? Should we omit them, act as if they never existed, and simply enjoy the music?
This is the dilemma we face today, a conflict that Nikolaus Harnoncourt already addressed in the first pages of his book Music as Speech: "As long as music was a central aspect of life, it could only be contemporary music, that is, music composed in the present... Since music is no longer central in our lives, all this has changed: music, as an ornament, must above all be 'beautiful'."
Let's consider this from another perspective: Do we really need a historical introduction or a literary analysis to understand a song by AnnenMayKantereit, Billie Eilish, or Bad Bunny?
Probably not. Regardless of personal preferences, we can connect with these songs and understand their lyrics. Is it simply because the music and "poetry" are simpler and more direct? Or could it be because these texts are rooted in our present time? Even if the new generation listens to music from 10 or 15 years ago, they often recognize that it is already outdated and no longer matches their current tastes.
This principle also applies to other art forms. Think of Kubrick's film The Shining. Compared to the new versions of IT with their modern visual and sound effects, it seems almost laughable. The same goes for soccer: Have you ever watched games from the 1960s and compared them to today's athletic performances?
The history of music shows that over time, not only the themes but also the techniques and forms of making music have changed. This happened not only out of a desire for originality but also due to technological advancements in the musical field (new instruments, materials, etc.).
From this perspective, if we ask ourselves: "What is an author's work?", we recognize that music is a collective phenomenon that goes beyond the score or the sound itself. Don't misunderstand: the sonic phenomenon remains the same, as the score ensures, to some extent, a faithful reproduction. But the listener's perception and reception, who must recognize, assimilate, understand, and relate this phenomenon to their own experiences, constantly changes. Even for the first listener of Beethoven's first symphony, the work was no longer the same the second time they heard it.
In this sense: If current pop music contains references, inside jokes, criticism of events, and situations that we understand because we recognize them, why should we think that music from the past does not function under the same principles?
This is where we find ourselves today: we seek "beautiful" music from the past that does not disturb or unsettle us. We want music that does not make us think but that we can contemplate like a museum piece. Like someone looking at a rusty sword in a gallery and forgetting the real purpose of that object. And for music from the past to fulfill this function, it must be stripped of all its context, neutralized, sterilized, and made timeless; it must be elevated to something almost ethereal so that it is not tainted by humanity. And composers must be elevated to superhuman geniuses to justify that this music does not belong to us. Finally, we free music from all humanity and reduce it to something purely emotional and sensory: "Just feel."
This works well with music that has relative neutrality, favored by the absence of written language. But what happens with operas —and particularly with Carl Nielsen's Aladdin— where we find texts that we can understand and that conflict with our current worldview? Here, it is necessary to grasp not only what is represented and how it is represented but also why it is done this way and what the motivations behind it are.
Me and Them: A View of the "Other"
We might think that, in today's world, with the enormous technological advances that unite us in a global village and with unprecedented access to information about what is happening in every corner of the planet, we would be free of stereotypes, fantasies, and myths about communities outside our own environment. After all, the information is literally at our fingertips —with smartphones connected to the internet all day.
But this seemingly unlimited access to information has taken away our naivety but has not freed us from our ignorance. It has freed those "foreign" countries from myths and fantasies, from fairy tales, but it has not led us to a complete understanding —not to a true recognition and appreciation of what we observe from a certain distance.
It may seem counterintuitive that this is the case, but it makes sense if we consider that we are the protagonists of our own story. We see the world from our perspective, with our eyes, and through the lens of our cultural landscape. Despite this inevitable individuality, we are part of communities that share common experiences and circumstances: space, time, language, social processes, fashions, etc. This is how Geert Hofstede defines culture in an anthropological sense: Culture is always a collective phenomenon, as it is shared, at least in part, with people who live or have lived in the same social environment —that is, in the place where that culture was learned.
From this culture that surrounds us, we look at the "Others," those who interact with us. But who is this "Other"? Ultimately, anyone who does not belong to our "us."
As already mentioned, our current access to information has taken away our naivety but not our ignorance. Ignorance here not in a derogatory sense, but simply as the lack of knowledge about something or someone. It is this unbearable gap that has led us, throughout human history, to seek explanations for everything that escapes our knowledge —from gods to monsters, from fantastic worlds to the theory of relativity. And even today, believing we know everything, the following happens: a new neighbor moves into our building, we scrutinize them from head to toe, look at their furniture, their clothes, their language, their skin color, and try to gather information in brief conversations in the hallway to find out who they are and whether they pose a threat or not. In the absence of concrete information, we resort to stereotypes that fit the few things we already know about them: origin, social status, preferences, etc. We need an idea to integrate them into our world.
From here, it is not hard to see how this mechanism worked throughout history between the West and the East. If today, despite all the real-time information available, we are still trapped in stereotypes and prejudices —what must it have been like in the past?
This dynamic is precisely what Edward Said criticized in his book Orientalism. The West has always had a reduced, subjective, and limited view of the East —a view that arises from prejudices and fantasies but at the same time serves as an argument to justify any action in those distant countries. This image constructed by the West is spread globally through economic, technological, and cultural means, depriving the "Orientals" of the opportunity to represent themselves and present their own perspective. Because if the world is convinced that the East is a place of barbarism, backwardness, and poverty —who will rise to defend it?
The East: A Land of Barbarians Full of Fantasy and Mystery
Now we can finally reach the point from which we can observe and understand Nielsen's score for Aladdin: How did the West view the East at the time Nielsen composed his music? What images, prejudices, sounds, flavors, and colors permeated the composer's mind when he took on the task of giving musical form to such a story?
Unfortunately, the current press also contributes to spreading this image: the East as a place of barbarism, backward compared to the West, poor, primitive, unhygienic, dangerous, etc. The East remains that distant place where the wars of recent decades continue —wars that are, to a large extent, influenced by Western interests.
The goal of this reflection is not simply to criticize or repeat ideas that have already been discussed in intellectual circles. Rather, it is to understand why these conceptions are so deeply rooted in our societies —even in a time when we are seemingly more focused on equality, freedom, and social development.
We live our lives from the perspective of the "I," and no matter how empathetic we may be, we remain the protagonists of our own story. We cannot escape the "I": our characteristics, fears, interests, preferences, and knowledge. This happens not only on a large scale between countries and cultures but also on the school playground: We seek like-minded people, those who give us security and confirm our worldview. This is because, as social beings, we depend on survival through community —a community that develops through shared places and experiences and transforms the individual "I" into the collective "we."
If I, as an individual, live in a community of people similar to me —how do I see the "Other"? Isn't this exactly what we call "culture shock"?
What we must understand is that the concept of "Orientalism" is a tool that helps make visible a dynamic and behavior that has existed over the years —a dynamic that has influenced politics, economics, and even art. This power imbalance becomes a vicious cycle in which the domination and control of the West over the East are reinforced —not only by what is said about those countries but also by what is done to them: if they are considered barbaric, they must be civilized; if they are poor, they must be helped; if they are rich, their resources must be exploited.
Just as in Latin America, the supposed reality of these countries justifies a generalized and exaggerated narrative, while the spread of this narrative justifies the measures taken against them. However, at no point are these countries given the space or voice to tell their own story and show their wealth —let alone present themselves as individual nations, rather than a faceless group lumped together under a foreign term. This is why "Orientalism" and —why not?— "Latin Americanism" are nothing more than ideological tools that give a philosophical and academic foundation to a tangible reality.
To move forward, we must recognize how this mechanism works within ourselves and consciously confront the images and stereotypes in which we participate —sometimes even unconsciously.
This is where the two ideas we have already reflected on converge: "Music as a testimony of a worldview" and "The gaze toward the Other." A musical work from the past that we still perform today cannot be seen simply as a work of art or a timeless masterpiece —it must be read as a historical document. Otherwise, it is reduced to mere entertainment. Music is a collective experience that involves not only the listeners but also their social dynamics, their rootedness in space and time. We can no longer justify the appropriation of a repertoire that does not belong to us solely with beauty, technical perfection, or a convenient "timelessness." Art, when not considered only in terms of its technique or subjective emotional effect, can be a historical source that illuminates us and shows what we have done as humanity.
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