Musical Orientalism and the Sublimation of Homosexuality in Early Twentieth-Century Spain

Abstract From the late nineteenth-century onward, Orientalism became a crucial vehicle for articulating non-normative sexualities in Europe. This phenomenon was especially significant in Spain, where several prominent composers were not heterosexual and where national identity was intricately linked to the country’s Islamic past. This article examines the sublimation of homosexuality in a corpus of Symbolist Orientalist works by leading modernist composers: Manuel de Falla, Adolfo Salazar, Ernesto Halffter, and Gustavo Durán. These compositions played a pivotal role in articulating sexual otherness among the educated classes in Spain and beyond, particularly within the circle of the English Hispanist John B. Trend and certain Parisian milieus. This essay provides a musicological analysis of the significant cultural phenomenon of homoerotic Orientalism in early twentieth-century Europe, with a particular emphasis on Spain – a subject increasingly explored in literary and art-historical studies but still largely overlooked in musicological discourse.