ABSTRACT
Musicologists remain, in general, unfamiliar with much of that work, since it appeared mainly in reviews and nonmusicology journals. This chapter explores the extent to which musicologists writing on the issues have been indebted to Edward Said, and also examines what it was that made critics either love or hate what he had to say. Musicologists were at first slow to engage with Said's ideas, and it was only when postcolonial criticism and theory were well under way in the 1990s that the implications for music were seriously considered. Said accuses much musicology of failing to comment on the 'transgressions from the purely musical to the social', and of thus promoting the idea that music 'has an apolitical and asocial autonomy'. Paul Robinson does find ideology in Aida, but locates its "heart" in Amonasro's impassioned call for his daughter to remember her conquered and tormented people.
