Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism

Thomas Patteson

Univ of California Press, Nov 11, 2015 - Music - 236 pages

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Player pianos, radio-electric circuits, gramophone records, and optical sound film—these were the cutting-edge acoustic technologies of the early twentieth century, and for many musicians and artists of the time, these devices were also the implements of a musical revolution. Instruments for New Music traces a diffuse network of cultural agents who shared the belief that a truly modern music could be attained only through a radical challenge to the technological foundations of the art. Centered in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, the movement to create new instruments encompassed a broad spectrum of experiments, from the exploration of microtonal tunings and exotic tone colors to the ability to compose directly for automatic musical machines. This movement comprised composers, inventors, and visual artists, including Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch, Jörg Mager, Friedrich Trautwein, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttmann, and Oskar Fischinger. Patteson’s fascinating study combines an artifact-oriented history of new music in the early twentieth century with an astute revisiting of still-relevant debates about the relationship between technology and the arts.
 

Contents

• Excerpt of the piano roll for Hans Haasss Intermezzo 1927 21: 1
• Juxtaposition of a painting by Fernand Léger and a drawing of: 2
• Mechanical Instruments: 18
• drilling machine 1923: 23
• Technical illustration of the WelteMignon reproducing pia no: 29
• Cover of Musik und Maschine special issue of Musikblätter des Anbruch 1926: 35
• Oskar Schlemmers costume sketches for the Triadic Ballet: 43
• Schematic representation of the Triadic Ballets overall struc ture: 45
• Paul Hindemith composing on a piano roll ca 1926: 46
• Jörg Mager and Electric Music: 52
• An artists rendering of Lee de Forests Audion Piano 1915: 61
• Technical draft of Jörg Magers crankoperated electric instru ment ca 1924: 62
• Léon Theremin and Jörg Mager 1927: 67
• Jörg Mager and an assistant in the laboratory 1927: 69
• Jörg Magers notation system for the division of the octave into seventytwo equal intervals: 77
• Jörg Mager playing the threemanual Partiturophon ca 1930: 79
• Media Instruments: 82
• The Expanding Instrumentarium: 152
• Notes: 169
• Bibliography: 209
• Index: 229

About the author

Thomas Patteson is Professor of Music History at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He is also Associate Curator for Bowerbird, a performing organization that presents contemporary music, film, and dance.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism; JSTOR Open Access monographs; OAPEN Library
• Author: Thomas Patteson
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Univ of California Press, 2015
• ISBN: 0520288025, 9780520288027
• Length: 236 pages
• Subjects: Music / History & Criticism