Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv is used to refer to:
- A collection of ethnomusicological recordings or world music, mostly on phonographs (cylinder records) assembled since 1900 in Berlin, Germany and
- The institution that assembled these recordings.
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[edit] The collection
The project was initiated in September 1900 by the psychology professor Carl Stumpf, after the visit to Germany of a music theater group from Siam, which Stumpf recorded on Edison cylinders with the assistance of the Berlin physician Otto Abraham. The archive's first director was Erich von Hornbostel, serving from 1905 to 1933. Its recordings, which comprise Edison cylinders and 78-rpm records of the traditional musics of the world, were first used for studies in comparative musicology, and now used for studies in ethnomusicology. The archive comprises approximately 350 collections, containing music from Africa (30%), North America (20%), Asia (20%), Australia and Oceania (12%), and Europe (10.4%), as well as multiregional collections (7.4%), which contain material from several continents.
The last cylinder field recording was made in 1953.
The historical collections include approximately 30,000 cylinders (original recordings and copies, positives and negatives) on which more than 16,000 distinct recordings are stored.
In 1999, the cylinder recordings of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv was listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.[1]
[edit] The institution
Initially, the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv belonged to the institute for psychology at the Friedrich Wilhem University in Berlin. Later it was relocated to become part of the conservatory in Berlin (in the 1920s) and then (in the 1930s) the Museum for Ethnology (Museum für Völkerkunde) with which the Phonogramm-Archiv had earlier cooperated.
After World War II the collections were divided. Most of the recordings were in East Germany, while the bulk of the corresponding documentation remained in the West. Both sides viewed the collection to be mainly lost. In the West, at the museum for ethnography Kurt Reinhard rebuilt the archive. New recordings were made, mostly on tape. Due to this fact and the fact that by this time the archive had also assembled an important collection of musical instruments, it was renamed to "department for ethnomusicology" (musikethnologische Abteilung) in the 1960s.
The department for ethnomusicology continued to collect music (mainly traditional music) from all areas of the world so that according to its 100h anniversy it housed an estimated 150,000 recordings[2]
An international conference called "100 Years Berlin Phonogramm-Archive: Retrospective, Perspective and Interdisciplinary Approaches of the Sound Archives of the World" was held from September 27 to October 1, 2000 at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin.
Today the ethnological museum is a part of the Musikethnologie department of the Ethnologisches Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.[2]
[edit] Discography
- 2001 - Music! The Berlin Phonogramm-Archive, 1900-2000. 4-CD set. Mainz, Germany: Wergo.
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
- Simon, Arthur, ed. (2000). Das Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv 1900–2000. Sammlungen der traditionellen Musik der Welt. Berlin: VWB. ISBN 3861356805.
- Ziegler, Susanne (2006). Die Wachszylinder des Berliner Phonogramm-Archivs. Ethnologisches Museum Berlin. Bd NF 73. Abt. Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv Bd XII. Berlin: Staatliche Museen. ISBN 3886095274.
