Arti musices, Vol. 53 No. 2, 2022.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/mjrl3ug8r9
Talking Machines in Spanish Commercial Musical Theatre, 1888-1913
Eva Moreda Rodríguez
orcid.org/0000-0003-4512-1992
; School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland
Abstract
In this article, I propose to explore questions around the transformations of talking machines into music machines in a specific national context (Spain), using a somewhat unconventional source: namely, Spanish género chico works (i.e. Spanish-language musical theatre) which feature such devices, in the understanding that these plays, because of the context in which they were produced and consumed, allow us insights into the reception of these technologies that are not easily available from other sources. The plays were all eminently commercial and present the phonograph or gramophone as a device for group listening, used within the plot of the play in two predominant modes: as a truth-teller or as a stage-device. In the article, I discuss how perceptions of phonographs were initially shaped mostly by existing discourses about science, technology, mobility and knowledge, and they only slowly shifted towards sound and music.
Keywords
phonograph; talking machine; Spanish music; zarzuela; early recording technologies
Hrčak ID:
291455
URI
Publication date:
16.1.2023.
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