Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Early cylinder recordings
of the world’s musical
traditions (1893–1952) in the
Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv
Inscribed 1999
What is it
The oldest sound documents of traditional music
of the world from 1893 to 1952. The collection comprises
15,185 phonograph cylinders or mechanical characters.
Why was it inscribed
The collection is of historic, worldwide and cross-cultural
significance and is an invaluable source for the study and
the history of music.
Where is it
Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany
The Phonogramm-Archiv is a centre of source materials
and reference for musicological and cultural studies. It
was formed in 1900 with the recordings on an Edison
phonograph of a group of Thai musicians performing in
Berlin; this proved to be the start of a pattern of recordings
of other touring musicians giving performances in the city.
Field recordings began coming into the Phonogramm-
Archiv in 1902 after expeditions to Turkey by the director
of the Ethnographical Museum, and to East Africa
(now Tanzania) by a German linguist. The archive later
received cylinders recorded even before 1900, made
with the Kwakiutl in the Pacific northwest in 1893 and
the Torres Straits in 1898.
Subsequently, the travellers going abroad – geographers,
linguists, ethnographers, doctors, missionaries, colonial
officers and others – were supplied by the archive with an
Edison phonograph and cylinders for recording music
in the field. Their collections, combined with archive’s
musicological analysis and interpretation, led to its growth
into a major centre of comparative musicology.
In addition, technical advances saw the archive become
a main centre for the copying of cylinders, and collectors
and institutions from other countries sent their collections
to Berlin for copying. By 1933, around 10,000 original
recordings were archived. Overall, 35.5 percent of the
collection comes from Africa, 11.7 percent from America,
25.7 percent from Asia, 11.4 percent from Australia and
Oceania and 15.5 percent from Europe.
Before the end of the Second World War all the
recordings were evacuated. Many cylinders went west
but others, together with other parts of the archive, were
sent to Silesia. The Russians took them from there to
Leningrad although most, but not all, were sent to East
Berlin in 1959. Cooperation at a personal level across
the Berlin Wall in the 1960s quietly allowed the shipping
of 4000 cylinders to West Berlin and their copying and
return, until the Communist authorities found out and
locked up the entire collection.
After the fall of Communism and the Wall, the whole
collection was returned to the Phonogramm-Archiv Berlin,
reuniting it after 47 years.
The archives are a potential source for extinct music
cultures, and of religious and traditional beliefs
of people before their conversion to Christianity –
as, for example, with Indian people in Argentina in
1905–06. Materials from the archives have already been
referenced as a basis for a planned revival of obsolete
performances, such as the court music of Fumban in
Cameroon or of Buganda in Uganda. Accompanying
documents give details of the content, including
technical details of the recordings, the performers,
their instruments and the cultural context; some also
have photographs.
Early cylinder recordings of the world’s musical traditions (1893–1952) in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 397