Steen K. Nielsen : RECORDING IN SILENCE: Reflections on the construction of music as sound object in early commercial phonography
The aim of my current research project on phonographic sound and audio culture is to address, within an overall audio-theoretical framework, the question of how the development and dissemination of commercial phonography in the early part of the twentieth century affected the sound of music as a cultural and aesthetic construct in Western musical culture.
My overall thesis is that the combined commercial exploitation and aesthetic exploration of this technology entailed phonographic effects [Mark Katz 2004] that resulted in an overall sonic de-contextualization of the sound of music – i.e. the (attempted) silencing of the ‘contextual’ sounds of musicking [Christopher Small 1998] as well as the material sound of the medium. Within this particular tradition of the phonographic ‘sounding’ of music, the phonogram came to constitute an inviting work-conceptual vehicle for the ongoing pursuit of music conceived as an autonomous and abstract art in a pure sound-world of its own, rather than as cultural or social practice or event. Due to its virtually limitless dissemination, this hugely influential sound (and work) construct shaped our perception of music-as-sound in fundamental ways.
To render the concept of music audible as this distinct cultural sound construct and to explore the theme of de-contextualization, I will draw on our rich heritage of recorded music, primarily from the first three decades of the twentieth century, and discuss what to our present-day ears may seem strangely ’primitive’ phonograms that both confirm and challenge current dominant musico-sonic conventions.
Steen Kaargaard Nielsen is Associate Professor in Musicology at the Department of Aesthetic Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark. He specialises in various areas of 20 th - and 21 st -century music ranging from European and American post-minimalism to film music and forays into popular music. Most of the subjects are linked by an ever more prominent interest in phonographic music, both historical and contemporary, and the cultural practices involved in both its production and appropriation. His publications related to recording include 'A change of scene: On the phonographic reconceptualization of the Broadway musical in the 1940s as reflected in commercial Kurt Weill cast recordings' (2005), 'Wife murder as child's game: Analytical reflections on Eminem's performative self-dramatization' (2007), and ‘“And incidentally, the score is quite beautiful”: Work conceptual reflections on the phonographic re-mediations of Max Steiner’s symphonic film score for Gone with the Wind (1939) as soundtrack album’ (2008).
He is currently on the board and the repertoire committee of the national record company Dacapo Records .
