1st Edition
The Gypsy Caravan From Real Roma to Imaginary Gypsies in Western Music
A formidable challenge to the study of Roma (Gypsy) music is the muddle of fact and fiction in determining identity. This book investigates Gypsy music as a marked and marketable exotic substance, and as a site of active cultural negotiation and appropriation between the real Roma and the idealized Gypsies of the Western imagination. David Malvinni studies specific composers-including Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Janacek, and Bartók-whose work takes up contested and varied configurations of Gypsy music. The music of these composers is considered alongside contemporary debates over popular music and film, as Malvinni argues that Gypsiness remains impervious to empirical revelations about the real Roma.
Biography
David Malvinni holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He teaches music courses at Santa Barbara City College, and has taught at UCSB.
