RECONSIDERING AN EARLY EXOTICISM: VIENNESE ADAPTATIONS OF HUNGARIAN-GYPSY MUSIC AROUND 1800

ABSTRACT Westernized Hungarian-Gypsy music (or the so-called style hongrois) has invariably been described as exotic. Although such a characterization is appropriate for later nineteenth-century compositions, I argue that it is inadequate for many of the earliest Viennese adaptations of Hungarian-Gypsy music. I focus in particular on representative examples from the sphere of Hausmusik, in which early adaptations were most numerous, yet which has received the least scholarly attention. Although these adaptations evoke a foreign place and foreign people through their descriptive titles, they are not, in most instances, exotic in style.