Music and the New Global Culture: From the Great Exhibitions to the Jazz Age by Harry Liebersohn (review)

Whether he is describing Carl Engel’s attempts to preserve popular music, A.J. Hipkins’s meticulous analysis of instruments as a means of cross-cultural understanding, Alexander Ellis’s mobilization of mathematical methods to explore variations in scale, Carl Stumpf’s archival work at the Phonogram...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:German studies review 2020-10, Vol.43 (3), p.617-619
Main Author: Smith, Jake P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
Ability
Cultural competence
Culture
Exhibitions
Fairs & exhibitions
Globalization
Jazz
Literary characters
Logic
Mobilization
Music
Music industry
Narratives
Popular music
Technology
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Summary:Whether he is describing Carl Engel’s attempts to preserve popular music, A.J. Hipkins’s meticulous analysis of instruments as a means of cross-cultural understanding, Alexander Ellis’s mobilization of mathematical methods to explore variations in scale, Carl Stumpf’s archival work at the Phonogram Archive in Berlin, Emile Berliner’s experiments with recording technologies and subsequent work in jumpstarting the global music industry, or Fred Gaisberg’s raucous travels across the globe in search of new “talent,” Liebersohn deftly illustrates the power of individual agency. Liebersohn’s commitment to showcasing the role of individuals in the emergence of this new global culture does not, however, lead him to ignore larger structural forces. [...]in both narratives, human ingenuity, coupled with advances in technology and communication, inevitably results in the liberation of the individual from traditional, place-bound lifeworlds.
ISSN:0149-7952
2164-8646
2164-8646
DOI:10.1353/gsr.2020.0090