Mechanisation of Time: Modern Experience and Musical Tradition

This book deals with the beginnings of the mechanisation of time in Western history and its fundamental influence on the realm of human experience. Philosophical reflection is carried out by Walter Benjamin and Henri Bergson, exploring the problematic of a quantitative understanding of time to the detriment of its original qualitative nature, a development that was historically strengthened and consolidated, according to the author, with the emergence of the mechanical clock and the musical score. Sound and musical experiences such as the church bells, the ticking of the mechanical clock and medieval Western polyphony led to the development of a sensibility suitable for the acceptance of a mechanised notion of time.