"Sounding Alarm: (circa 1850)"

"Sounding Alarm: (circa 1850)"

Audio recording of a lecture given by Alexander Rehding on February 3, 2023 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: The nineteenth century was a time of progress but also of crisis – and the study of musical sound was no exception. While around 1800 a sense prevailed that scientists like E.F.F. Chladni and Thomas Young had lifted the secret of sound, this was just the calm before the storm. The presentation of the mechanical siren in 1819 sounded an alarm—literally and metaphorically: the new mechanism threatened to overturn the foundations of the old theories and threw the study of sound into a profound crisis. But this crisis was also a time of great creativity: figures like F. Opelt and J.-G. Kastner came up with innovative approaches that turned the study of music and sound in new and unexpected directions. The important scientist H. v. Helmholtz managed to put a damper on this crisis in the 1860s with some wise and conciliatory pronouncements, but the benefits for music remained and continued to be developed – in compositions by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, and far beyond.

Santa Fe, NM

2023-02-03

Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.

sound

mp3

English

SF_RehdingA_Sounding_Alarm_circa_1850_2023-02-03

m4a

00:58:46