
Sound Knowledge
Music and Science in London, 1789-1851
University of Chicago Press
Published on 27. January 2017
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-226-40207-9 (ISBN)
Description
What does it mean to hear scientifically? What does it mean to see musically? This volume uncovers a new side to the long nineteenth century in London, a hidden history in which virtuosic musical entertainment and scientific discovery intersected in remarkable ways.Sound Knowledge examines how scientific truth was accrued by means of visual and aural experience, and, in turn, how musical knowledge was located in relation to empirical scientific practice. James Q. Davies and Ellen Lockhart gather work by leading scholars to explore a crucial sixty-year period, beginning with Charles Burney's ambitious General History of Music, a four-volume study of music around the globe, and extending to the Great Exhibition of 1851, where musical instruments were assembled alongside the technologies of science and industry in the immense glass-encased collections of the Crystal Palace. Importantly, as the contributions show, both the power of science and the power of music relied on performance, spectacle, and experiment. Ultimately, this volume sets the stage for a new picture of modern disciplinarity, shining light on an era before the division of aural and visual knowledge.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
514 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-40207-9 (9780226402079)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2017
1st Edition
University of Chicago Press
€72.49
Available for download
Persons
James Q. Davies is associate professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Romantic Anatomies of Performance. Ellen Lockhart is assistant professor of musicology at the University of Toronto.