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William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast: Orientalism And The Continuation Of The English Oratorio, Elissa Hope Keck

Masters Theses

This study investigates aspects of Orientalism found within the genre of the English oratorio, specifically William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast (1931). Building on Edward Said’s research on Orientalism, analyses of Orientalist representations in music exploded the field of musicology in the 1980s and 90s. However, the examination of Orientalism in sacred genres remains lacking. Bringing forth cultural, political, and musical conflicts between East and West, Walton’s oratorio encourages further investigation in previously unaddressed genres. I argue that, by combining dramatic operatic elements with sacred text, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast reflects a continuation of Orientalist ideologies through binary opposition aimed at perpetuating the …