(Dis)embodied voices

Abstract

This chapter discusses the role of singers in shaping the nascent industry of the gabinetes fonográficos in Spain and, in turn, how the newly developing recording industry influenced their careers and on the music profession. It argues that, even though the phonograph did not revolutionize at this stage the working lives of Spanish singers, it planted the seeds for crucial developments that would take place in the following decades. Indeed, a few singers—only a minority of which had acquired celebrity status on stage—conscientiously developed the expertise and skills necessary to go into the studio, and managed to advance their careers on that basis, at least for a short period of time. Although the chapter does not deal with the minute details of performance practice, it discusses aspects of the music profession and its relationship with recordings that might inform study of performance practice.