' East in Western Dress'
The exotic music of Asia has long exercised a peculiar fascination on European composers. It has attracted them and they have wanted to incorporate it, or some of its features, in their own work ; but they have always been checked by the sheer impossibility of reconciling the totally dissimilar musical systems of East and West.' Consequently Western attempts at Oriental music are at best a compromise and often only a convention. Mozart's ' Turkish music', for instance, is purely conventional, while Weber and Hoist at least based their music on genuine Arabian and Japanese melodies.