Page 166 - HandbookMarch1

Against a backdrop of fascination with this “Other,” the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle took place over the
course of six months between May 6 and November 6. Of five Expositions Universelles roughly a decade apart, 2
a special significance graced this one, timed one hundred years after the French Revolution. Twenty-five million
3
people visited the grounds along the Seine River in what is now Parc Champs de Mars, headed by the newly
constructed Eiffel Tower and featuring displays in the form of concert halls, galleries, cafes, boutiques, villages,
and pavilions. (See Figure 1 for the General View of the grounds.) France’s colonies Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal,
Gabon-Congo, Oceania, Cambodia, Annam, Tonkin, and Cochin China (these last three comprising today's
Vietnam) were all represented. Countless other countries brought their own exhibits at France's invitation. One
of the most successful world's fairs in history, it had enormous political, technological, historical, cultural, and
musical significance. 4

Figure 1. General View of 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. (The Art
Achive/Musee Carnavalet Paris/ Dagli Orti)

While representation of the exotic was already popular in musical and stage works with characters, stories,
dancing, and music in imitation of the Other, the 1889 Exposition for the first time brought authentic exotic
5
music to visitors to experience close-up. Julien Tiersot, a musician, scholar, and eyewitness to the Exposition,
rhapsodized over its wonder and importance:

Rome is no longer in Rome; Cairo is no longer in Egypt, nor is the island of Java in the East Indies. All of this
has come to the Champ de Mars. . . . Without leaving Paris, it will be feasible for six months to study at our
leisure, at least in their exterior manifestations, the habits and customs of faraway peoples. . . . music being
among all of these manifestations the one most striking . . . The thing most interesting of all and most novel
for us, in the Javanese village, [is] a spectacle of sacred dances, accompanied by a music infinitely curious,
which will take us as far as possible from our civilization. 6

Tiersot's book includes studies of music from many exotic countries represented at the Exposition ranging from
Africa to Norway, Vietnam to Roumania, America to Egypt. His chapter on Java describes gamelan instruments
and elements of musical composition, and contains transcriptions of musical examples as well.

Among the most popular exhibits was the kampong, or village, of Java, with nearly a million visitors. (See Figure
2.) Its entrance featured two tall towers with double sloped pagoda-like roofs. Tents sheltered a village where
some sixty Javanese inhabitants lived and carried on typical activities for all to see such as housekeeping,
cooking, weaving cloth, making batiks, carving bamboo utensils, and making jewelry. Processions of villagers
playing hand drums and angklung (hand held instruments of rattling tuned bamboo tubes) escorted visitors to
the open-air pavilion where musical and dance performances occurred daily. 7
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