And the influence of the gamelan on Western music is still evident today: its impact is palpable in the minimalist writing of composer Philip Glass, the intricate percussion compositions by set-theorist Iannis Xenakis, and in a variety of new-age ambient, punk, and electronica albums. Composers whose works were influenced by the gamelan, such as Debussy, Bartók, Partch, Britten, and others, heralded the advent of modernism and signaled the end of the Common Practice era, emerging stylistically from beneath the shadow of Romanticism. I aim to augment the existing corpus of research concerning the influence of the Balinese and Javanese gamelan on contemporary Western art music and on the development of musical modernism, highlighting how hybrid aesthetics have come to not only influence but ultimately define many modern soundscapes. This thesis argues that the gamelan has played a central role in creating a Western musical culture that seeks hybridity with non-Western musics as a means of creating novel soundscapes. Throughout, I demonstrate that liminality is an extraordinarily pertinent lens through which to view Roma participation in the Hungarian folk music scene. Finally, I discuss how musicians and the crowds that gather to hear and dance to their music together create a carnival atmosphere, breaking down some of the boundaries that organizers work so hard to create. In addition, I look at how Rom musicians both negotiate with the táncház’s aesthetic of authenticity and challenge it musically. Organizers often erect clear boundaries of status, genre, and gender roles through such events, which, among other things, address the anxiety raised by Rom musicians’ power in liminal spaces. Drawing on media sources and on fieldwork in Hungary and Romania, I examine how authenticity and ‘Gypsiness’ are presented and controlled by the scholars, musicians, and administrators who lead the táncház movement, in particular in the context of camps and workshops dedicated to Hungarian folk music and dance.
Táncház rhetoric centres on the trope of localized authenticity but the authority wielded by rural Rom musicians, who carry music both between villages and around the world, complicates the fixed boundaries that various powerful stakeholders would place on the tradition. The musicians of the revival known as the táncház (dance-house) movement rely heavily on rural Rom musicians, especially those from Transylvania, as authentic sources of traditional Hungarian repertoire and style.
In the Hungarian folk revival, Hungarian Roma (Gypsies) serve as both privileged informants and exotic Others.
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