Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Czech Music

Saved from the teeth of time: folk music on historical sound recordings.

Article Excerpt
One important characteristic of the music we call folk music is its tight link to its extra-musical context. Folk song had its specific place in life, and was sung in particular places on particular occasions. If it is taken out of this context--for example in the case of a sound recording--part of the information about it is lost. On the other hand, it is precisely thanks to recording that folk music can leave its "milieu" and reach listeners who would never otherwise hear it. In addition, the recording enables us to hear how the music sounded in an earlier era. The oldest sound recordings of the folk music of Bohemia and Moravia were made almost a hundred years ago. What has been preserved for us from that time?

History in Wax

In 1888 Thomas Edison put his phonograph on the American market and at the same time the Columbia company started to manufacture a device exploiting the patent of Alexander Graham Bell. Sound recording became an international vogue and did not pass unnoticed in Central Europe. Indeed, as early as 1892 Leos Janacek, the composer and collector of folk music, reportedly thought about using the technical novelties on his folksong-gathering expeditions. He actually got round to it a few years later as chairman of the Working Committee for Czech Folksong in Moravia and Silesia. This institution was supposed to co-ordinate the collection of folk songs as part of the project Folksong in Austria, and in its minutes of the 8th of October 1909 we find the purchase of a phonograph noted. Although Janacek had made great efforts to bring in a phonograph, he made only a few recordings on it himself and most of the recordings were made by his colleagues,...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!