Félicien David (1810-1876) is considered, for the ‘ode-symphonie’ Le Désert (1844), the inventor of musical exoticism. A genuine expert on the East, where he lived for many years, this composer and advocate of Saint-Simonianism, is a fascinating figure mainly because of the vast breadth of his cultural horizons. His study of the Elsewhere with Herculanum (1859) moves from space to time; and in this, too, David was a precursor.