The debut of a Japanese exhibit at the 1867 Exposition Universelle prompted a new enthusiasm for Japan (dubbed japonisme) that soon gripped artistic and literary circles in Paris. Camille Saint-Saëns's one-act opera La princesse jaune, which premiered at the Opéra-Comique in 1872, emerged at the height of this fervour. At first glance, it might seem that La princesse jaune simply followed the trend. Yet, on closer examination it is possible to understand its story of an infatuated young artist as a playful, subversive commentary on japonisme. This article thus poses the question: How might we understand La princesse jaune as a parody? To answer this, I begin by considering its protagonist as a mockery of the elitist and exclusive japoniste subcultures that emerged in the wake of the Exposition. Borrowing from William Cheng's concept of ‘opera en abyme’, I then consider the opera's dream sequence, examining how its shifting diegesis highlights the fragile and ephemeral nature of the Orientalist dream. Ultimately, I argue that reading La princesse jaune as a parody allows us not only to reframe the work within Saint-Saëns's œuvre, but also to reassess its place within the wider contexts of nineteenth-century operatic Orientalism.

As practised by Nicholas Cook, Philip Tagg, and Nicolai Graakjær, the analysis of advertising music has largely concentrated on how advertising works to communicate meaning. Within media and communications studies, such a focus is seen as a distraction — albeit a fascinating one. For Sut Jhally, for example, advertising has pernicious social and ecological effects and advertising scholars’ goal should be to understand ‘what work advertising does’ in order to mitigate them. This examination of a Ford automobile advert featuring Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew …’ (1967) shows how music analysis might contribute to this pressing project.

How does the process of screening orchestral music direct and focus audience attention? Visualization strategies can have a profound impact on how we appreciate music and can guide us to listen in very specific ways. Just as particular conductors and orchestras have interpretative identities, so do multi-camera directors. There has, however, been scant research on the influence of strategies and methods used in the visualization of orchestral concert music. Nicholas Cook suggested that musical enjoyment is spoiled by the ‘monstrous close-up’1 and Keith Negus explained that broadcasters believe that viewers will direct their attention to whatever instrument is most noticeable to the ear, ‘as if music audiences are similar to those following the ball in a tennis or football match’.2 The close-up is not solely about chasing action, though; it is also central to the continuity editing system, which is designed to maintain a continuous and clear narrative across time and space.3 Edits are not just about faithfully following or capturing action; they also have dramatic and psychological implications.

This study explores the experience of concert piano technicians who work on pianos played by the top tier of concert pianists in the world. They identify as craftspeople with a strong sense of vocation, who are autonomous, skilled, yet connected. They consider their pianos to be alive, with their own personalities and agency, needing to be tamed, loved, and negotiated with. The connection between their human fingers and the body of the piano is experienced as one of sensation and vibration rather than conscious thought, leading to ‘flow’. Findings are contextualized through qualitative psychology, Actor Network, and Material Engagement Theory.

During the ragtime craze at the turn of the twentieth century, the popular repertoire of “coon songs” was coupled with a robust style of vocal delivery called “coon shouting.” This vocal technique was associated with white women—the most famous “coon shouters” of the day—who, like the performers of the nineteenth-century minstrel show, claimed to have studied so-called authentic Black performance in order to replicate it on stage. Performing the “coon song” repertoire, these women sang, often from a Black male protagonist's point of view, about the trials and tribulations of Black life and romance. How did the dynamics of race, gender, and sexuality in this repertoire change when it was performed by Black women? This article addresses this question by examining caricatures of Black womanhood within the “coon song” genre and by exploring the phenomenon of Black women performing the “coon song” repertoire, using the career of vaudeville performer Dora Dean (1872–1949) as a case study. I track Dean's participation in the “coon song” craze through an archival survey of sheet music and newspaper reviews dating from the height of her career (ca. 1896–1914). Using these sources, I explore the recurring theme of racial passing and the ubiquity of caricatures derived from blackface minstrelsy within Dean's “coon song” repertoire. I argue that Dean successfully navigated stereotypes of Black women's femininity, sexuality, and morality in her performances of “coon songs” and, in the process, subverted stereotypes of Black life, romance, and vocal sound.

This article discusses a music treatise written in 1812 by the Catholic Armenian polymath Minas Bzhshkean (1777–1851). The article focuses on the historical and intellectual context in which the idea of notational reform emerged within the Armenian diaspora. Bzhshkean was born in the Ottoman Empire but educated at the Mekhitarist monastery of San Lazzaro in Venice, which was the leading intellectual centre of the Armenian Enlightenment. By discussing Bzhshkean’s use of sources from multiple cultural and intellectual traditions (including European authors such as Rousseau), the article provides a new perspective on music and Enlightenment in global context.