When Machines Play Chopin

WhenMachines Play Chopinbrings together music aesthetics, performance practices, and the history of automated musical instruments in nineteenth-century German literature. Philosophers defined music as a direct expression of human emotion while soloists competed with one another to display machine-like technical perfection at their instruments.WhenMachines Play Chopin looks at this paradox between thinking about and practicing music to show what three literary works say about automation and the sublime in art.