01 July 2014
Songs of the Dinka of South Sudan
The British Library has recently acquired a collection of field recordings made in South Sudan which document Dinka song culture. Songs of the Dinka of South Sudan - Diɛt ke Jiëëŋ ne Cuëny Thudän - can now be accessed via our catalogue, by searching for C1580, and listened to online. Dr. Angela Impey, one of the researchers on the project, has written the following text which contextualizes the research project and gives some general information on Dinka culture:
The songs in this collection were recorded for a project entitled Metre and Melody in Dinka Speech and Song, which was conducted between 2009 and 2012 by researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in collaboration with Dinka researchers in South Sudan. The academic aims of the project were, first, to understand the interplay between Dinka song structures and the Dinka language (which distinguishes words not just by different consonants and vowels but also by means of vowel duration, pitch and voice quality), and, second, to learn more about the song tradition and the ways it has responded to the intense disruptions caused by protracted civil war.
Funding for the project was provided by the ‘Beyond Text’ programme of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Project participants included Bob Ladd, Angela Impey, Bert Remijsen, Elizabeth Achol Ajuet Deng, Peter Malek, Miriam Meyerhoff and Simon Yak Deng Yak.
ABOUT DINKA SONG
Almost everyone in Dinka society will accumulate a repertoire of personal songs during their lifetime, and most dialect groups follow a similar compositional process. Individuals who lack the ability to compose good songs will approach a talented composer in the community and commission a composition in exchange for a cow or an agreed sum of money. Occasionally a composer will be considered a talented lyricist only, in which case a second individual, who has an aptitude for good melody making, will be brought into the process. Upon completion, the song will either be taught directly to the ‘owner’, or if the owner is not a good memoriser, via a group of relatives or age-mates, who will gradually pass it on to the owner.
[In this ox song (C1580/59), Deng Jok Ajuoong, praises his ox, Mading, which he compares with an elephant. He sings about how he acquired his ox through hard work.]
Most musical structures in sub-Saharan Africa are based on highly repetitive, multi-part vocal and rhythmic interactions, and melodies are typically based on the hexatonic (six tones per octave) or equi-heptatonic scales (seven tones equally distributed across the octave). In contrast, Dinka tuning systems follow a standard pentatonic scale (five tones) and songs are composed in an extended series of linear, interconnected song-segments that follow a simple, regular or semi-regular pulse. Certain song types are accompanied by clapping, clapping sticks or a small double-sided drum (loor), and are performed either solo, in unison or in simple call-response format. The only melodic instrument played by the Dinka (apart from more recently introduced western instruments) is a 5-stringed lyre referred to as rababa. Marked aesthetic variations do occur across the dialect groups, which are likely to be the result of different social, economic, environmental and political circumstances.
[This song (C1580/6) is performed by a women's group during the war in South Sudan. It is an encouraging song about Dr. John Garang and Koryom, a battalion of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The women start the song by singing “The Arabs said we are afraid, how can we be afraid while John Garang is strong?”]
Apart from one book (available in British Library Reading Rooms) published on song lyrics by Francis Mading Deng in 1973, no formal research has been conducted on Dinka music. Yet songs play a fundamental role in the lives of all Dinka people, functioning as individual and social chronicles of relationships, experiences and historical events. In fact, the Dinka boast an usually complex taxonomy of songs – praise songs, war songs, songs of initiation, cathartic songs, religious songs, to name a few – each of which is defined by discernible melodic, rhythmic and performative features. Woven through all song types, however, is the poetic allusion to the interconnection between self, cattle and land or locality. As one musician explained: If you know our Dinka songs, you will know the Dinka people.
06 June 2014
Iso Elinson (1907-1964) - 50th anniversary of Russian-British pianist
Fifty years ago, Iso Elinson died at the age of fifty-six during the interval of a charity concert at King’s College, London.
Born in Mogilev, Russia, Elinson was the youngest of ten children. After studying the piano with his mother (herself a pupil of Anton Rubinstein) at the age of four Elinson enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory where he continued with Felix Blumenfeld (the teacher of Vladimir Horowitz) and took composition classes under Alexander Glazunov. In 1922 the famous Russian composer wrote a glowing report when Elinson left:
‘This is to certify that Mr Isaac Elinson entered the Conservatory in 1911, having displayed a musical gift of genius. Under my tutorship in the years 1917–1919 he thoroughly studied all the musical literature. He graduated brilliantly in composition in 1920. He possesses both a remarkable and skilful technique in piano playing and a genius for artistic musicality. In the might of his talent and performance he is truly a follower of Franz Lizst. Therefore I consider his musical education to be complete.'
In 1927 at the age of only twenty, Elinson performed all thirty-two of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in Leningrad, Moscow and Kazan to celebrate the centenary of the composer’s death and in 1929 played the complete Wohltemperierte Klavier in Berlin. It was in that city that he befriended Albert Einstein who in March 1930 provided a testimonial to serve Elinson as a passport, in which he referred to ‘his God-given artistic gifts and his pure child-like face’.
After his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1933 Elinson appeared regularly in Britian often appearing with Henry Wood, John Barbirolli and Thomas Beecham. He took British citizenship in the mid-1930s and in 1938 made his debut in New York.
Elinson performed regularly in Britain, often two or three concertos with orchestra in one concert, and in the 1950s and early 1960s gave Chopin recitals at the Royal Festival Hall. It was at this time that he made a number of LPs for Pye records of Chopin's Etudes and Preludes. A disc of Beethoven Sonatas was issued posthumously as was one of the Handel and Paganini Variations by Brahms.
It is a little known fact that Elinson made two 78rpm discs during his visit to Berlin in 1929-1930 for German Columbia. Only issued in Germany at the time, I was delighted to be offered one of these extremely rare discs for the British Library by Elinson's grandson Matthew Brotherton. The only problem was that the disc was broken in half. However, with state of the art restoration techniques here at the British Library Conservation Centre, engineer Tom Ruane was able to digitise and preserve the disc.
One side of the disc, Chopin's Mazurka in G sharp minor Op. 33 No. 1 and Etude Op. 25 No.6 can be heard here:
Disc-S2-Mazurka in Gis Moll-Final
23 May 2014
Nigerian music and dance records at the British Library
The South African-born choreographer and dancer, Peggy Harper (1923 – 2009), worked from 1963 to 1978 in Nigeria, mainly based at the University of Ibadan and the Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife), where she carried out extensive research on traditional dance styles and masquerades relating to ritual and recreational ceremonies and performances. Co-founder of the Ori-Olokun performing arts centre (or Cultural Centre), Peggy created and co-produced creative dance and theatrical works for the stage, collaborating with towering figures such as Wole Soyinka.
Gwari musicians from central Nigeria. Peggy Harper Archive C1074
Peggy expounded on her work and approach in an article for African Arts (vol. 1 no. 1, 1967) (available via JSTOR electronically and in hardcopy at the BL). Peggy teamed up with anthropological film-maker, Frank Speed, who helped her record in film, audio and still photography many of the dances and masquerades.
Unidentified photo. Peggy Harper Archive C1074
Unidentified photo of masquerade. Peggy Harper Archive C1074
These materials were kindly donated to the British Library in 2003 where they are being digitised and made available for listening and viewing via our on-site services.
Although Peggy was not an archivist, librarian or historian, she had a keen mind to the importance of creating a record “using the most reliable and comprehensive means available to give an accurate, if possible, first-hand picture of the dancers in their original context” (African Arts as above, p80). She predicted that “these records will be of immense value historically and sociologically, and as raw material for the theatre of the future.”
As the British Library prepares for its major exhibition on West Africa, due to open in October 2015, the Peggy Harper Archive is indeed providing a valuable resource, some 50 years after their original making.
22 May 2014
Three free Sound Case events during June
The Saga Trust funds the Edison Fellowships for students to study recordings in the Classical Music department. Each June on a Tuesday at 5pm the Fellows have an opportunity to give an illustrated talk on their current work. This year the free presentations will be:-
Tue 10 Jun 2014, 17.00-18.00
Foyle Suite, Centre for Conservation
Matthew Rubery - From Shell Shock to Shellac: the Great War, blindness and Britain’s talking book library
Tue 17 Jun 2014, 17.00-18.00
Foyle Suite, Centre for Conservation
Emily Worthington - Catch me if you can: Rubato and ensemble flexibility among British clarinettists on record, 1898-1953
Tue 24 Jun 2014, 17.00-18.00
Foyle Suite, Centre for Conservation
Margaret Dziekonski - Leopold Stokowski's performance aesthetic
More details of how to obtain free tickets can be found at
06 May 2014
112-year-old recording of William Paull donated to the British Library
A recent call from Daphne Duthie alerted me to a small collection of LPs that she had purchased in Russia in the 1970s. There were a few of interest, but she then showed me another modest collection of 78 rpm gramophone discs that had belonged to her grandfather, Brigadier J.R.B. Knox. About 40 of the discs were recorded before the First World War and most of them were not held by the British Library. The repertoire is a mixture of classical and popular music, many with a Scottish flavour as it was from there that part of her family originated.
One single-sided disc by baritone William Paull in particular caught my attention. Born in Cornwall in the early 1870s, at the age of seven Paull was a chorister in London. He joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company and in 1897 sang the role of Marcello in the English premiere of Puccini’s La Bohème in Manchester under the supervision of the composer. Paull then toured Australia where he sang the baritone and bass parts in Elijah and Messiah in Sydney.
In New York he sang the part of Wolfram in Wagner’s Tannhäuser in 1900 and the following year joined the Castle Square Opera Company. While in London at the turn of the century his popularity led the Gramophone Company to invite him to record around 68 sides for them during 1901 and 1902. While on tour in America he recorded one seven-inch disc for Victor of O du mein holder Abendstern from Tannhäuser on 16January 1903. Less than three weeks later on 5 February 1903 Paull was dead in a fall from the sixth-storey hotel window in St. Louis.
The recording, made 112 years ago in 1902, sounds remarkably clear for its age. Below are the label and a sound file.
Here is the recording of William Paull, singing "Wrap me up in my old stable jacket", a traditional song about a dying soldier. It has various texts and is also known as "Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket".
01 May 2014
British Music at the British Library: two free events on 10 May
On Saturday 10 May 2014 in the Foyle Suite, British Library Centre for Conservation there will be two free events to celebrate the outstanding British music collections at the British Library.
The Full English Archive Open Day
From 10.30 to 1.30, the Full English Archive Open Day will give access to some of the original manuscript folksong transcriptions of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Grainger, with illustrated talks about the early folk revival and the collectors. This presentation forms part of the Full English project, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and developed by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). For the first time 19 of the most significant manuscript collections of folk music, song and dance amassed in England during the folk revival of early 20th century are available to browse and search online. Also find out how The Full English digital archive works and can be used, and learn about the project’s development from author and folklorist Steve Roud and EFDSS Library Director Malcolm Taylor OBE.
This event is supported by the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Further information:
The British Music Society Annual Lecture:
'Sir John Barbirolli: British Music's Cockney Emissary'
In the afternoon(starting at 2.30), join Dr Raymond Holden, the Sir John Barbirolli Lecturer in Music at the Royal Academy of Music, for a talk about 'Sir John Barbirolli: British Music's Cockney Emissary'. Dr Holden will use recordings, marked scores and other performance artefacts to chart the role of Sir John Barbirolli as British Music's leading international advocate. This presentation will be the Annual Lecture of the British Music Society. Material from both the Royal Academy of Music and the British Library will be on display. The lecture will start at 2.30pm and will be presented in two 50-minute halves with a short break.
This event is supported by the British Music Society. Further information: http://www.britishmusicsociety.com/bms-events/
Admission to both events is free, but to reserve a seat please book free tickets in advance through the British Library Box Office:
Full English: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event159831.html
Barbirolli: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event159832.html
17 April 2014
The music of Holy Week in Seville
For the last seven years recordist Duncan Whitley has documented the events at Seville's Semana Santa in Spain. The results of this dedicated study can be found in collection C1338, which contains recordings in both audio and video of the rituals of Holy Week. Duncan's approach provides a unique and intimate acoustic portrait, allowing the listener to experience Holy Week as if they were there!
To celebrate Easter we invited Duncan Whitley to write the following guest blog for the World and Traditional Music section describing his collection:
The 194 audio and video recordings handed over to the British Library last month form part of an ongoing study of the soundscapes of Seville's Semana Santa, many recordings from which are already available in collection C1338. The collection features field recordings documenting the aural landscapes of Seville's Easter processions, with a particular focus on both processional music and the saetas flamencas. The saetas are short, flamenco prayers sung from balconies and in the streets, as effigies of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary are carried past. The styles of saeta documented in the collection largely fall into the categories of: saeta por seguiriya, por martinete, por seguiriya con cambio a martinete, or por carceleras. With regards to processional music, it is worth mentioning that Seville has a heritage of musical composition for the Semana Santa, which can take on great significance when performed in certain places and times, in accompaniment to particular religious images to whom the marches are dedicated.
This most recent batch of recordings dates from Easter 2013, and features interviews with saeta singers Pili del Castillo, Paquita Gómez and José Antonio Rodríguez Sabín, alongside video and sound documentation of Seville's public processions. The material links up with recordings already available in collection C1338, as well as a quantity of material captured across Easter 2011 and 2012 which has yet to be catalogued.
The first video documents the salida (exit from the church) of the Guide Cross of El Silencio, on the Madrugá (early hours of Good Friday). Susana Sierra Martínez sings her saeta por seguirilla from a balcony opposite the church door. It is one of only two places in Seville where it is customary to sing to the Guide Cross (saetas typically being addressed to the religious images of Christ or the Virgin).
En la Calle Silencio, 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The following video documents the salida of the procession of Jesús Despojado on Palm Sunday of 2013. Upon completion of the complex manoeuvre of the religious float from the interior of the church into the street, the Agrupación Musical Virgen de los Reyes plays the Marcha Real.
Jesús Despójado, Salida 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The next video follows on from the previous, with the Agrupación Musical Virgen de los Reyes accompanying the religious float bearing the image of Jesús Despojado as it makes its way through the Plaza de Molviedro. The marches interpreted are A La Gloria!, which segways into Tu Misericordia.
Jesús Despojado, A La Gloria! 2013 from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
The last video documents the return of the popular Esperanza de Triana ("Hope of Triana") to its neighbourhood, Triana. The brotherhood was not able to complete its Station of Penitence on the Madrugá, and having sought refuge for two nights in Seville's cathedral, the procession returns "home" without musical accompaniment. Upon reaching the Calle Pureza, where the religious images reside all year round, the public accompanying the Virgin Esperanza sing the Salve Marinera.
La Esperanza de Triana, regreso a Pureza (2013) from Duncan Whitley on Vimeo.
Duncan Whitley www.duncanwhitley.net
03 April 2014
Keeping Tracks - a one day symposium on music and archives in the digital age
Since October 2013 the British Library has been engaged in a six-month project investigating ways in which we can work with the fast-moving digital music supply chain, improve its relationship with the music industry and to help develop a Library-wide transition to acquisition of digital materials as part of its long-term Content Strategy. As part of this work a one-day symposium took place.
Keeping Tracks was devised as an opportunity for the British Library to talk about its collections and how we collect, preserve, conserve and give access to them, be they a 100-year-old wax cylinder or a newly minted digital file. It was also a great chance to gather different sectors of the industry – tech, labels, metadata, and archives – in one room to talk about an area that usually gets overlooked in traditional music industry conferences.
In the early spring sunshine of Friday 21 March delegates gathered from all corners of the globe and descended into the Conference Centre auditorium to be greeted by Curator of Popular Music, Andy Linehan. Andy set the scene and offered some historical context about where the British Library’s archives of recorded material had come from and handed over to colleagues Adam Tovell and Alex Wilson to talk about where they are going.
AV scoping analyst Adam Tovell proceeded to discuss the study he has been engaged with for the last 12 months. Tovell and his team have been counting, quantifying and assessing the collections, analysing international standards and devising schedules to define best practice in the long-term audio-visual preservation of the Library’s 1.5 million recordings – before it’s too late. The recording of his fascinating address can be found below
Adam Tovell - On shelves and clouds
Alex Wilson - Download into the BL
From the preservation of acetate and shellac, CDR and cassette to the collecting of digital sound and music Alex Wilson, Curator of Digital Music Recordings soon took to the lectern amidst a riot of noise and national anthems. This cacophonic audio clip was designed to illustrate the uphill challenge the British Library faces in 2014. Online sound and music is everywhere. It is the Library’s job as guardians of the nation’s audio memory to make sense of this. Wilson proceeded to show the first stages of a new collaboration that will improve the way we collect born-digital music and highlight other projects being investigated. The Q&A included some interesting questions surrounding Legal Deposit for recorded music and concerns of metadata ownership. Views from the floor regretted that this valuable material was without the benefits of statutory archiving and preservation that other material enjoyed.
Keeping Tracks then opened its doors to the working music industry during a perceptive Q&A with Lesley Bleakley of the Beggars Group and Rory Gibb of music magazine, The Quietus. With over twenty years of experience in the music industry and representing a record label that is regarded as a leading light in digital delivery and archiving, Lesley Bleakley was perfectly placed to offer a fascinating insight. Moreover, she touched on the burgeoning relationship between Beggars and British Library Sound and Vision itself; the last year for instance has witnessed a mutual sharing of advice and guidance and music culminating in the delivery of the entire Beggars digital back catalogue in early 2014.
Lesley Bleakley and Rory Gibb - Beggars Archive
Post-lunch the discussion became truly international in scope as we invited representatives from peer organisation the National Library of Norway to take the stage. Whilst Norway shares many of the same archiving principles with British Library Sound and Vision it is differentiated in one crucial respect. Norway’s legalisation declares that all music recordings must be legally deposited at its National Library. Lars Gaustad and Trond Valberg discussed this and showed the auditorium their innovative new donation portal allowing users to deposit recordings online.
Trond Valberg and Lars Gaustad - Norway
Keeping Tracks then hosted a dynamic presentation from another peer institution. Creative Director at BBC Future Media, Sacha Sedriks shared his understanding of the guiding principles around music and metadata, the semantic web and the ecosystem that underlies their nascent BBC Playlister service. Through absorbing statistics and images Sedriks shone light on a pioneering new platform that only hints at how the truly immersive and interactive BBC Radio and Television offering of tomorrow will look like.
Sacha Sedriks - BBC Playlister
Metadata underpins much of what we do here at British Library Sound and Vision and was a recurrent theme across the Keeping Tracks day. Hence it seemed only right to ask a leading music metadata supplier to the stand. Decibel Music Systems served up a talk in three parts: metadata from a market, data and technical perspective. Metadata is the glue that binds many systems together across the industry. As a result the Decibel presentation was followed by a lively and passionate Q&A which showed how important data is to making things (and people) click.
Decibel Music Systems - Dataphile
Whilst refreshments were guzzled, the auditorium was being tuned to a trans-Atlantic frequency. For the most ambitious strand of the Keeping Tracks we had invited UK based Music Tech Fest to share their keynote panel live via Skype from Microsoft Research Labs in Cambridge, MA, USA. The subject: developers, APIs and the music archive. Watched through the Skype-fuzz an energetic session ensued, moderated by Music Tech Fest head Andrew Dubber in the States and former Soundcloud man Dave Haynes here in the UK. Particular note should go to Microsoft researcher Jonathan Sterne who delivered an impassioned reflection on the nature of archiving and the internet which drew a round of applause in the London space.
Music Tech Fest - Posterity Hacking
The end was nearly upon us. The final official session of Keeping Tracks was a panel chaired by Jennifer Lucy Allan of the WIRE magazine, stimulating discussion amongst a trio of label owners who specialise in lost music, records and reissues. Jonny Trunk (Trunk Records), Roger Armstrong (Ace Records) and Spencer Hickman (Death Waltz Recordings) proceeded to entertain the delegates with an informal, humorous, inspiring and sobering account in the wonderful art of releasing beautiful old music. Anecdotes, asides, controversies and reflections filled the hour and one suspects we could have talked well into the night.
Panel Discussion - Archives and music
Before the close of the day we invited respected author, journalist and Goldsmiths lecturer Mark Fisher to deliver his own personal take on what had gone before. Whilst it may have polarised some of the audience, Fisher’s lucid account of the 2014 digital space, music, memory, innovation and consumption sounded a stark clarion call to ring us toward the close.
The British Library would like to thank all those who presented, spoke, attended and asked questions at this inaugural Keeping Tracks symposium. We have been delighted with the feedback so far and would welcome any further suggestions, recommendations and donations for the future. If nothing else Keeping Tracks felt like a genuinely unique event (up) lifting the lid on a usually ignored, diverse set of issues and investigations about music and archiving in the 21st century. Long may these discussions continue...
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All full presentations streaming here
All presentation slides displayed here
A follow up interview by Digital Music Trends is here
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