On the production of sounds

Modern work involves many notions and requirements which are not entirely new. There is evidence that important elements of modern work, like the significance of professional work or the connection between social security and wage labour, result from developments which took part at the beginning of the 20th century. Important events like the emergence of public labour exchanges or the increased use of career counseling have already been researched extensively. Relatively little research has been done on the consequences of these developments on specific work activities over comparatively short periods. The present research shows the relations between work and music-making in a period which was characterized by the changes described above, the period between 1918 and 1938. Music-making is an activity which has so far gained very little attention from labour historiography even though its manifold forms as wage labour, as private entertainment, as amateur work make it very suitable for a comparative approach. Furthermore, previous research on music-making has always focussed on very specific groups of musicians, like orchestral musicians, street musicians or travelling musicians. In contrast, the present research puts many different forms of music-making into relation with each other in the context of work and non-work, leading to new insights. This study describes the essential categories according to which music-making was practised as work and non-work in Austria between 1918 and 1938. The main part of the study is a systematic comparison of life writings from musicians, although many other sources like decisions from labour courts or publications from musicians unions are used as well. In this way, it could be shown that whether music-making was art as well as whether music-making was a professional activity were essential questions which determined as how legitimate music-making was perceived. The combination of these categories allows us to identify different institutionalized forms of music-making. For exampe, there are important differences between the serious study of music (which can be characterized as devoting ones life to music) and occasional music-making which took place whenever it was possible. With the help of these and other important categories, a new interpretation of musical as well as labour-related developments in the Austrian interwar period becomes possible.