Full Description
Sound Heritage is the first study of music in the historic house museum, featuring contributions from both music and heritage scholars and professionals in a richly interdisciplinary approach to central issues. It examines how music materials can be used to create narratives about past inhabitants and their surroundings - including aspects of social and cultural life beyond the activity of music making itself - and explores how music as sound, material, and practice can be more consistently and engagingly integrated into the curation and interpretation of historic houses.
The volume is structured around a selection of thematic chapters and a series of shorter case studies, each focusing on a specific house, object or project. Key themes include:
Different types of historic house, including the case of the composer or musician house; what can be learned from museums and galleries about the use of sound and music and what may not transfer to the historic house setting
Musical instruments as part of a wider collection; questions of restoration and public use; and the demands of particular collection types such as sheet music
Musical objects and pieces of music as storytelling components, and the use of music to affectively colour narratives or experiences.
This is a pioneering study that will appeal to all those interested in the intersection between Music and Museum and Heritage Studies. It will also be of interest to scholars and researchers of Music History, Popular Music, Performance Studies and Material Culture.
Contents
1 Introduction: Making Music Matter in Historic Houses
Jeanice Brooks and Wiebke Thormählen
2 All About House Museums
Linda Young
3 Listening Through the Walls: Music Making in the Historic Houses of Rabindranath Tagore
Suddhaseel Sen and Pramantha Tagore
4 Engaging the Musical Imagination in Museums and Historic Houses
Eric de Visscher and Mimi S. Waitzman
5 Case Study Engaging Visitors with Bach's Music: Sound Concepts and Visitor Experience at the Leipzig Bach Museum
Kerstin Wiese
6 Striking a Chord - A Study in Harmony: Music, Musical Instruments and Historic Houses in Practice
Ben Marks
7 Case Study History without Words: Visitors Take Matters into Their Own Hands
Christiane Barth
8 Mapping Historic House Music Collections in the United Kingdom
Katrina Faulds, Jonathan Frank and Christopher Scobie
9 Case study The Dowling Songbook Project
Helen Mitchell, Neal Peres Da Costa and Matthew Stephens
10 A Decorated Tune in a Decorated Room: Interpreting the Musical Palimpsest in Historic House Museums
Matthew Stephens
11 Case Study Multiple Moments at The Vyne
Jeanice Brooks and Matthew Tyler-Jones
12 Music and Stories of Space in the Historic House Museum
Jeanice Brooks
13 Case Study Experiencing Sound: Historical Performance and Digital Technology in French Royal Residences
Vasco Zara
14 Expanding the Narrative: Public History, Music and the Irish Country House
Karol Mullaney-Dignam
15 Case Study Sounds of Hidden Town and the Hidden Town Project
Franklin Vagnone and John Yeagley
16 Telling Stories, Sounding Faith: Exhibiting Religion in Historic House Museums
Wiebke Thormählen
17 Case Study Listening to the Past: The Context for Music at Mugga Mugga
Jennifer Gall
18 Are You Experienced? Intimacy, Authenticity and Emotion in the House Museums of Musicians
Marion Leonard
