Early Recording Cultures in Spain, 1880-1905: Towards a Transnational History

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The current project seeks to produce the first critical account of the early history of phonography in Spain, from1880 to 1905; in doing so, it aims to set the foundations of a transnational, context-sensitive understanding of the early history of musical recordings, fully integrating both local specificities and issues of national identity, memory, affection, mobility, modernity and others. The project addresses the research questions: How was the reception of early recording technologies in Spain informed by local practices and cultural specificities? What can we learn from the study of such practices and specificities to build the foundations of a transnational history of phonography which integrates context-specific developments with broader trends?Even though the last decade has seen a surge of interest in early recordings as both documents of performance and cultural artefacts, the present project is relevant and necessary because most such studies have focused on industrially and technologically advanced countries fully integrated into the trade networks which made it possible for artefacts and discourses to circulate (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany). Similarly, central to many such studies are repertoires regarded as central in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century musical canon (e.g. the Austro-Germanic symphony; Lieder; opera, etc.). This geographical and cultural focus tends to be implicit rather than explicitly acknowledged; what the current study aims to do is to bring to the forefront local practices, repertoires and attitudes to technologies in order to fully explain the early impact of recording technologies on listening and cultural practices at a global level and set the foundations for a transnational history of recorded music. The research questions will be answered through interrogation of a number of audio-visual and textual primary sources: original recordings; their boxes, labels and other packaging; newspaper and magazine articles focusing on specific events or artefacts, or on the phenomenon of phonography more generally; photographs of phonographs or of events having to do with recorded music; advertisements, catalogues and commercial documents (commercial correspondence, etc.) of recording studios; passages from memoirs and private letters on the subject of recorded music; books from the period 1880-1905 about the contemporaneous developments in recorded music and on science, technology and understandings of modernity.The results of the research will reach academic and non-academic beneficiaries through the following channels:-A monograph and two articles in highly rated-journals, as well as at least two conference presentations.-A symposium bringing together for the first time scholars of early recording in individual countries as well as archivists/librarians working with early recordings. Follow-up activities include a special issue of a journal.-A Digital Humanities project, Stories of Early Phonography, presenting the results from the project under the form of an interactive map and fostering reflection among researchers, archivists/librarians, expert users and the general public about how narratives of early recorded music have been and are constructed, and the role of cultural specificities in both.-A public engagement event at the Spanish Song and Zarzuela Festival in London consisting of a roundtable academic experts on Spanish music and representatives for institutions focusing on the promotion of Spanish music and culture abroad. The roundtable will discuss the challenges of promoting Spanish culture abroad and develop innovative ideas to do so will be brought up, with a view to developing at least some of them in future editions of the festival.