Music and the New Global Culture: From the Great Exhibitions to the Jazz Age

352 Pages·2019·2.951 MB·English

by  Harry Liebersohn

Music and the New Global Culture
BIG ISSUES IN MUSIC
A project of the Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series
Edited by Philip V. Bohlman and Ronald M. Radano
ALSO IN THIS SERIES
Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills
by Kirin Narayan
Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present
by Timothy D. Taylor
M U S I C
and
THE NEW GLOBAL CULTURE
From the Great Exhibitions to the Jazz Age
HARRY LIEBERSOHN
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Publication of this book has been supported by the Joseph Kerman Endowment of
the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment
for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2019 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any man-
ner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of
Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 62126- 5 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64927- 6 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64930- 6 (e- book)
DOI: https:// doi .org/ 10 .7208/ chicago/ 9780226649306 .001 .0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Liebersohn, Harry, author.
Title: Music and the new global culture : from the great exhibitions to the
jazz age / Harry Liebersohn.
Other titles: Big issues in music.
Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. |
Series: Big issues in music
Identifi ers: LCCN 2019008605 | ISBN 9780226621265 (cloth : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780226649276 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226649306 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Music and globalization—History. | World music—History and
criticism. | Ethnomusicology—History. | Globalization—History. | Sound
recording industry—History.
Classifi cation: LCC ML3916 .L54 2019 | DDC 780.9—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008605
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of
Paper).
For Dorothee

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
PART I CRAFT
1 A German Connoisseur in Cosmopolitan England 29
2 An English Craftsman Discovers World Music 47
PART II SCIENCE
3 Sound in Historical Time 75
4 Scales around the World 91
5 Is It Noise, or Is It Music? 123
6 Music’s Global Archive 151
PART III COMMERCE
7 Phonographs around the World 177
8 Americans Abroad: Innocents and Transnationals 195
9 A Global Empire of Sound 221
10 Commerce versus Culture 237
Conclusion 249
Acknowledgments 265
Notes 271
Further Reading 327
Index 331

Introduction
Anyone who has heard of Ravi Shankar will probably associate
his name with some of the most marvelous moments of the
1960s. There is the image of him at Woodstock: the world- famous
sitar player amid the galaxy of rock stars, becoming a kind of rock
star himself in the giddy days of summer ’69. Fans around the
world heard the sounds of his instrument, the sitar, in the albums
of the Beatles, fi rst toyed with as an exotic prop, then played with
greater seriousness by George Harrison after the group spent time
with Shankar in India. At the time, the master reacted with private
impatience to the adulation of his countercultural admirers. Yet
in later years he could take a wider view. Some of the people who
on fi rst hearing Indian music treated it so casually, he wrote in his
autobiography, went on to develop a serious relationship with it.
In the end, he had made the right decision to take up the role of
Indian music’s emissary to the West.1
Shankar’s experiences in the 1960s were but one chapter in a
lifetime of cultural encounters. They began in Paris in the 1930s,
when he was still a boy. A fi lm clip shows him with the dance
troupe of his older brother, Uday Shankar.2 Uday brought Indian
dance and music to European and American audiences. Ravi not
only played and danced in his brother’s ensemble but also got a
French education, reading novels, cultivating himself widely, and
1