The Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv is a collection of ethnomusicological recordings or world music, mostly on phonographic cylinders, assembled since 1900 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

by the institution of the same name.

The collection

The project was initiated in September 1900 by the psychology professor

Carl Stumpf Carl Stumpf (; 21 April 1848 – 25 December 1936) was a German philosopher, psychologist and musicologist. He is noted for founding the Berlin School of Experimental Psychology. He studied with Franz Brentano at the University of Würzburg ...

, after the visit to Germany of a music theater group from

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

, which Stumpf recorded on

Edison cylinder Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for Sound recording and reproduction, recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1896–1916), these hollow cylinder, cylind ...

s with the assistance of the Berlin physician Otto Abraham. The archive's first director was

Erich von Hornbostel Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (25 February 1877 – 28 November 1935) was an Austrian ethnomusicologist and scholar of music. He is remembered for his pioneering work in the field of ethnomusicology, and for the Sachs–Hornbostel system of mus ...

, 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 Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

, 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 Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...

in the collection was made in 1953. In 1944 during the wartime invasion of Germany, around 90% of the collection was taken into Russia. In 1991, following the reunification of East and West Germany, the pre-1944 collections held by the Soviets were returned to the Museum für Völkerkunde. 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 were inscribed on

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

The institution

Initially, the ''Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv'' belonged to the Institute for Psychology of the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. Later, in the 1920s, it was relocated to the Berlin Conservatory, and then in the 1930s, it became part of the ''Museum für Völkerkunde'' (now the

Ethnological Museum of Berlin The Ethnological Museum of Berlin (german: Ethnologisches Museum Berlin) is one of the Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in ...

), with which the ''Phonogramm-Archiv'' had earlier cooperated. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the collections of the ''Phonogramm-Archiv'' were divided. Most of its 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 West Berlin, Kurt Reinhard rebuilt an archive at the Ethnological Museum. New recordings were made, mostly on tape. Due to this, and the fact that by this time the archive had also assembled an important collection of musical instruments, in the 1960s the collection was renamed the "Department for Ethnomusicology" (''musikethnologische Abteilung''). The Department for Ethnomusicology continued to collect music, with a focus on traditional music, from all areas of the world, so that by its 100th anniversary it claimed to house an estimated 150,000 recordings Archive listing (misdirected link)
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

. Today, the Ethnomusicological Museum forms part of the ''Musikethnologie'' department of the

of the

Berlin State Museums The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

(''Staatliche Museen zu Berlin''), under the

Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (german: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz; SPK) is a German federal government body that oversees 27 museums and cultural organizations in and around Berlin, Germany. Its purview includes all of Berlin's ...

. It is in 2021 in the process of moving to the newly built Humboldt Forum in the center of Berlin. The Berlin Phonogram Archive is part of the Museum's Media Department under the direction of Dr. Maurice Mengel.

Discography

*2001 - ''Music! The Berlin Phonogramm-Archive, 1900-2000''. 4-CD set. Mainz, Germany:

Wergo WERGO is a German record label focusing on contemporary classical music. It was founded in 1962 by German art historian and music publisher (1903–1975) and the musicologist Helmut Kirchmeyer. Their first release, filed under "WER 60001", was ...

References

Bibliography

* Koch, Lars-Christian; Wiedmann, Albrecht; Ziegler, Susanne (2004).
The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv: A treasury of sound recordings
'. Acoustical science and technology 25(4), 227–231, *Simon, Arthur, ed. (2000). ''Das Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv 1900–2000''. Sammlungen der traditionellen Musik der Welt. Berlin: VWB. . * Stumpf, Carl (1908).
Das Berliner Phonogrammarchiv
'. Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik 2(8), 225-246 *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. .

External links

(German)
Experimental cylinders of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv
in the

Virtual Laboratory The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. T ...