Industrialisation and Auditory Culture of Eastern Europe in the Age of Pianoforte

Abstract

Being born into the world of sounds, we have no knowledge of the origin, the amplitude, the frequency or the manufacturing conditions of sound objects that surround us in everyday life. Beyond the history of material culture, these are results of psychological experiments and acoustic measurements that we have to take with us on the way to cognition. All the data is crucial for understanding the national auditory culture, to be defined as everything that people and social groups create in the area of sounds. The focus of this article is the comparative analysis of auditory culture in Eastern and Western Europe. The study refers particularly to the period of industrialisation when the groundbreaking and still valid foundations of classical piano music (as it is called today) were laid.