Hirt, Katherine
When Machines Play Chopin
Musical Spirit and Automation in Nineteenth-Century German Literature
Series:Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies 8
Aims and Scope
When Machines Play Chopin brings together music aesthetics, performance practices, and the history of automated musical instruments in nineteenth-century German literature. Philosophers defined music as a direct expression of human emotion while soloists competed with one another to display machine-like technical perfection at their instruments. When Machines Play Chopin looks at this paradox between thinking about and practicing music to show what three literary works say about automation and the sublime in art.
Supplementary Information
- 170 pages
- Language:
- English
- Type of Publication:
- Monograph
- Keywords:
- Mechanical Musical Instrument; Music/in Literature
- Readership:
- Academics, Departments, Libraries
- Subjects
- Literary Studies > Literary Studies, General
- Literary Studies > German Literature > 19th Century
- Art and Music > Music
- Art and Music > Music
- Literary Studies > Literary Studies, General
- Literary Studies > German Literature > 19th Century
- Art and Music > Music
- Literary Studies > Literary Studies, General
- Literary Studies > German Literature > 19th Century
MARC record
MARC record for eBook"Densely written and diligently researched, When Machines Play Chopin interweaves literary history, aesthetics, performance history, and the history of technology in new and unexpected ways. [...] By focusing on the literary life of music machines, Hirt presents a compelling narrative on music aesthetics and the mechanical from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, one with important consequences for a contemporary discussion of the place of the human vis-à-vis technologies of sound."
Mary Helen Dupree in: Monatshefte 104/1 2012