Portugal and mechanical music in the early phonographic era

Abstract

This chapter examines the studies mechanical music in Portugal and how it impacted the circulation of repertoires in the early phonographic era. Mechanical music comprises recorded sound and mechanical instruments such as the player piano, innovations that transformed the ways people interacted with music in the late nineteenth century. The chapter tries to understand mechanical music through the lens of intermediality; the way different media interconnect and articulate. Theatrical shows, sheet music, sound recordings, and piano rolls coexisted and infiltrated different places, linking stages, streets, and homes. The ubiquity of music in everyday life transformed the way people musicked as multinational companies and local enterprises established a market for sound recordings. Recording famous people from the music theatre was a pervasive tendency in early phonography. Music commodities such as sheet music, music rolls, and sound recordings embody different tendencies of modernity.