Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In Moravian Soundscapes, Sarah Eyerly explores the connections between the "sounded theology" of the Moravian church and the "sacred landscapes" that surrounded the Moravian missionary settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the mid-1700s. Bethlehem in the decades following its founding was a much quieter place than its modern-day, post-industrial manifestation.
Eyerly argues that perception of sound in this environment was critical to the residents of Bethlehem as church and school bells, trombone choirs, the bells of communal homes, and the singing of hymns regulated the life of the community. One's ability to listen, interpret, and understand these sounds was essential to a shared sense of time and social responsibility. Through explorations of these sounded relationships--natural, human, and spirit--Eyerly explores how sounds, both musical and nonmusical, human and non-human, shaped religious culture for the German, English, Delaware, and Mohican residents of Bethlehem. Combined with access to an interactive website that immerses the reader in the sounds of mid-eighteenth-century Bethlehem, this book recovers the role of sound and music in this specific historical context and provides a road map for similar studies of other places in the future.
Synopsis
In Moravian Soundscapes, Sarah Eyerly contends that the study of sound is integral to understanding the interactions between German Moravian missionaries and Native communities in early Pennsylvania. In the mid-18th century, when the frontier between settler and Native communities was a shifting spatial and cultural borderland, sound mattered. People listened carefully to each other and the world around them. In Moravian communities, cultures of hearing and listening encompassed and also superseded musical traditions such as song and hymnody. Complex biophonic, geophonic, and anthrophonic acoustic environments--or soundscapes--characterized daily life in Moravian settlements such as Bethlehem, Nain, Gnadenh tten, and Friedensh tten. Through detailed analyses and historically informed recreations of Moravian communal, environmental, and religious soundscapes and their attendant hymn traditions, Moravian Soundscapes explores how sounds--musical and nonmusical, human and non-human--shaped the Moravians' religious culture. Combined with access to an interactive website that immerses the reader in mid-18th century Pennsylvania, and framed with an autobiographical narrative, Moravian Soundscapes recovers the roles of sound and music in Moravian communities and provides a road map for similar studies of other places and religious traditions in the future.