1,721,010 research outputs found
Trust in Early Recordings: documents, performances and works
Full text linkOver the past few years, I have arrived at the conclusion that one should feel genuine sympathy for any researcher that is misfortunate enough to study early recordings. This is not because their area of research is so bewilderingly broad. Nor is it because researchers of early recordings are required to read so many different kinds of text. Rather, it is because no matter how far their scholarship advances, and no matter how significant their findings appear to be, scholars of early recordings are constantly questioned about the legitimacy of the very thing that they study. I have experienced this first-hand, since involving myself in a research project focussed on the production and analysis of mechanical recordings; even though the findings of this project were disseminated far and wide, involving both academic and public audiences, specialists and non-specialists, questions about the legitimacy of early recordings almost always dominated proceedings. The precise nature of the questions varied, of course, as did the terminology used. The overarching sentiment remained the same: to what extent can we really trust early recordings
A plurality of (metaphorical) languages: Neue Sachlichkeit under the prism of multilingualism
No full textThis chapter proposes a novel approach to Neue Sachlichkeit by reframing its frequently noted stylistic pluralism through the lens of literal, not just metaphorical, multilingualism. Drawing on theories from multilingualism and creativity studies, the author explores how the multilingual environments of interwar Europe—and especially Weimar Berlin—shaped the practices, identities, and aesthetics of composers linked to the Neue Sachlichkeit. By analysing contexts such as international music networks, composition classes, and works like Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf, the study highlights how multilingualism informed both musical content and broader cultural ideologies. The chapter ultimately argues for multilingualism as a critical and underexplored category for future research on the Neue Sachlichkeit, emphasizing its potential to enhance our understanding of the movement’s engagement with modernity, urbanization, and transnationalism
Inventing the Recording. The Phonograph and National Culture in Spain, 1877-1914
No full textInventing the Recording focuses on the decades in which recorded sound went from a technological possibility to a commercial and cultural artefact. Through the analysis of a specific and unique national context, author Eva Moreda Rodríguez tells the stories of institutions and individuals in Spain and discusses the development of discourses and ideas in close connection with national concerns and debates, all while paying close attention to original recordings from this era.
The book starts with the arrival in Spain of notices about Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877, followed by the first demonstrations of the invention (1878-1882) by scientists and showmen. These demonstrations greatly stimulated the imagination of scientists, journalists and playwrights, who spent the rest of the 1880s speculating about the phonograph and its potential to revolutionize society once it was properly developed and marketed. The book then moves on to analyse the 'traveling phonographs' and salones fonográficos of the 1890s and early 1900s, with phonographs being paraded around Spain and exhibited in group listening sessions in theatres, private homes and social spaces pertaining to different social classes. Finally, the book covers the development of an indigenous recording industry dominated by the so-called gabinetes fonográficos, small businesses that sold imported phonographs, produced their own recordings, and shaped early discourses about commercial phonography and the record as a commodity between 1896 and 1905
Should there be a twenty-first century ‘Complete Kapellmeister’? The skills, content and purposes of a university music degree
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Phonographic Encounters
No full textThis cross-disciplinary volume illuminates the history of early phonography from a transnational perspective, recovering the myriad sites, knowledge practices, identities and discourses which dynamically shaped early recording cultures. With case studies from China, Australia, the United States, Latin America, Russia, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy, Phonographic Encounters explores moments of interaction and encounter, as well as tensions, between local and global understandings of recording technologies. Drawing on an array of archival sources often previously unavailable in English, it moves beyond western-centric narratives of early phonography and beyond the strict confines of the recording industry. Contributions from media history, musicology, popular music studies, cultural studies, area studies and the history of science and technology make this book a key and innovative resource for understanding early phonography against the backdrop of colonial and global power relations
The music industries: theory, practice and vocations – a polemical intervention
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