Original archive

Berlin Phonogramm Archiv (EMEM)

Dept. of Ethnomusicology, Media-Technology and Berlin Phonogramm Archiv

Arnimallee 23-27
D-14195 Berlin
Germany

Visitor's entrance:
Ethnologisches Museum
Lansstraße 8
14195 Berlin-Dahlem

phone:
+49 30 8301 253
eMail:
m.mengel@smb.spk-berlin.de
web:
www.smb.spk-berlin.de/smb/

Open to the public
Wednesday and Friday 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
(open by in advance appointment only)

Contacts
Lars-Christian Koch
head of the department

Susanne Ziegler
historical collections

Albrecht Wiedmann
sound engineer

Michael Fuhr
DISMARC project manager

Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv

The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv is part of the ethnomusicology department of the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin (formerly the Museum für Völkerkunde). Today it holds one of the world's finest and most comprehensive collections of traditional music.

The archive was established by Professor Carl Stumpf at the Institute of Psychology of Berlin University. The foundation of this unique collection of music began in 1900 with the recording of a Thai theatre group at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Carl Stumpf was mainly interested in acoustics and music psychology, whereas Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (director of the Phonogram Archive from 1905 to 1933), soon established close links and fruitful cooperation with the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin.

In 1902, the then-director Professor Felix von Luschan, took a phonograph with him on an expedition to Sendshirli (in present-day Turkey), where he recorded Turkish and Kurdish songs. Inspired by von Luschan, other members of the Museum became interested in recording. They were all instructed on recording techniques and equipped with a phonograph and a supply of blank wax cylinders. A journal provided all necessary information about the recordings (such as place, date, details of those involved). The archive then produced galvanoplastic negatives ('galvanos') including copies for the collector and the Archive.

The birth of ethnomusicology

Hornbostel himself as well as other researchers transcribed the music and published the material. The main concern of the archive was to collect as many examples of traditional music as possible, in order to create and develop theories about the origin and evolution of music. Thus, based upon the large number of wax cylinders from all over the world, a new university discipline came into being, comparative musicology / ethnomusicology.

The wax cylinder recordings of the Phonogramm-Archiv span more than 50 years. The archive received more than 16,000 original cylinders from almost all areas of the world, recorded between 1893 and 1954. 351 different collections, each from between one to several hundred cylinders, have been inventoried, along with original documentation, correspondence, references to documents and photos. The range of historical recordings covers a variety of non-Western music: traditional as well as popular, secular as well as ritual, musical instruments, examples of foreign languages and speech, experimental recordings, and also contains a small amount of Western music (Examples 1 by Jegog Jayur and 2 by Karaikkudi S. Subramanian).

The modern era

During its eventful history, the archive was forced to change its location and institutional affiliation several times. In 1944, about 90% of the holdings were evacuated to Silesia, first taken to Leningrad and later brought to East-Berlin. The historical collections were returned to the Museum für Völkerkunde after the unification of East and West Germany in 1991. The "Early cylinder recordings of the world's musical traditions in the Berlin Phonogrammarchiv" were included in the UNESCO register 'Memory of the World' in 1999.

After the Second World War a new era of recording started with the purchase of the first tape recorder. The remains of the former Phonogramm-Archiv in West-Berlin formed the basis for a new ethnomusicological department, which opened in 1952 under Professor Kurt Reinhard, combining the sound archive and a collection of musical instruments. The sound archive comprises commercial as well as non-commercial recordings made in the field (examples 3 by Donald Kachamba's Kwela Band and 4) and also during concerts of traditional music in Berlin (examples 5 by San Pedro de Jujuy). The number of music recordings is steadily increasing, and the stock of tapes, records, cassettes (analogue and digital), and videos (original and copies), today exceeds the holdings of the pre-war Phonogramm-Archiv not only in size, but also in content and scientific perspective.

For over one hundred years the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv has focussed on collecting and researching traditional music from all over the world. While sound carriers and recording techniques have changed, the purpose of the sound archive has remained the same: the collection, preservation, research and publication of the world's musical traditions.

co-funded by the European Commission