Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical Recording

Colin Symes

ISBN 10: 0819567213 / ISBN 13: 9780819567215

Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 2004

About this Item

Dust jacket: Very slight wear. Preserved in a removable jacket protector. Overall jacket condition is Near Fine. Book: Quarter black cloth with paper covered boards. Slight marking to top page edge, otherwise excellent. Overall book condition is Near Fine. Size: 6.5 x 9.25 inches (16.5 x 23.5 cm). Hardback. Printed pages: xiii, 313.

Seller Inventory # 1237E010

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical Recording
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0819567213
• ISBN 13: 9780819567215
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Weight: 890 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Music

About this title

Synopsis

Record albums are more than records; they include covers and liner notes, catalogs, magazines, and advertisements. In this fascinating study of the materials that surround LPs and CDs, Colin Symes undertakes a cultural history of the record, looking specifically at the way the phonograph helped democratize classical music by enabling it to be heard at home, away from the concert hall. Symes argues that the listening habits associated with classical records and recording were produced and naturalized through a magazine culture, which conveyed the idea that collecting and listening to records were legitimate pastimes for the general public. The first chapter lays out a textual theory of the phonograph and compact disc, while subsequent chapters look critically and historically at the different components of the recording process: covers and cover notes, the rhetoric of the record review, the influence of recording on performance, the domestication of the concert hall, advertising in the record industry, and even the architecture of record shops. Symes's path-breaking history will engage anyone with an interest in classical music and recording.

About the Author

COLIN SYMES is Lecturer at the Australian Center for Educational Studies at Macquarie University.