13 Days When Music Changed Forever - Program 07:<br>May 6, 1889: The Birth of "World" Music

The opening day of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, when Debussy first heard gamelan music, and “world&rdqou; music became a part of Western European classical language. Composers before and after Debussy frequently turned to vernacular sources for inspiration, whether Brahms, Mahler and Bartok incorporating folk melodies, Copland and Gershwin using the rhythms of Latin dance, or Steve Reich quoting West African drumming.