The Ghost in the Machine: Towards a Musicology of Recordings

Abstract

This article introduces the other contributions to this second issue of Musicae Scientiae devoted to the work of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM), and sets them into the larger context of musicological research into recorded musical performance. There is consideration of musicology's historically odd relationship to performance, including the historically informed performance movement and what is referred to as the ‘page-to-stage’ approach of recent music theory: CHARM's analytical projects focussed on aspects overlooked by the score-based approach, on the potential for bottom-up methods, and on the nature of performance style and the extent to which it can be meaningfully analysed by empirical methods. Another strand of CHARM's research investigated the extent to which the commercial practices of the record industry have helped to shape twentieth-century performance. The author includes brief accounts of his own projects with CHARM so as to provide an overview of the Centre's work as a whole.