Author Archives: Mason Vander Lugt

An Index of British Institute of Recorded Sound publications ‘Bulletin’ and ‘Recorded Sound’, 1956-1984

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Post written by Mason Vander Lugt – ARSC Blog Editor / Library of Congress

In the summer of 1947 the British Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (ASLIB) called a conference to discuss the possibility of forming a comprehensive British national sound archive. It was a victory for a young music lover named Patrick Saul, who had been building the idea since he was a boy.

Saul grew up in Dover in the 1920s, and became interested in music through records and radio due to a lack of options to see serious music locally. In an address to the International Association of Music Libraries in 1973ⁱ, Saul tells how he “became consumed with the idea of establishing an institution” after finding that his local record shop didn’t have a copy of an out of print record he’d read about, and the British Museum didn’t collect records.

A few years later, Saul’s piano teacher introduced him to Frank Howes, president of the Royal Music Association and music critic for The Times. Howes encouraged Saul to pursue his plan, and the pair convinced Lord Esher, who had helped found the National Theatre, Compton MacKenzie, editor of Gramophone, and various other representatives of cultural organizations that the idea was worth pursuing.

In the years following the ASLIB conference, the British Institute of Recorded Sound (BIRS) was pieced together by donations from charitable trusts and arts councils. The team convinced the BBC and rights organizations of the legitimacy and importance of private recording of broadcasts and convinced the treasury to waive duty on imports and tax on domestic donations. In 1953 the Institute began hosting a series of public lectures and in 1956 began publishing the Bulletin. In 1961 the Institute began receiving public money for continued operation and in 1983 was officially absorbed by the British Library to become the National Sound Archive.

The BIRS Bulletin and its successor Recorded Sound contain a wealth of information about audio archiving and related disciplines. Topics range from British composers and orchestras to wildlife recording, from major label discographies to the minutiae of cataloging and audio production. Especially interesting to me are the years between the first issues of Bulletin and the inauguration of the ARSC Journal in 1967. In this span, Bulletin and Recorded Sound documented the formation of some of the most treasured American audio collections, including those of the New York Public Library and Stanford, Yale and Indiana Universities.

I’ve prepared an index of Bulletin and Recorded Sound to help researchers discover articles on their own topics of interest, but I encourage curious ARSC readers to browse the index for their own interests and consider tracking down issues of the journals in their local libraries. I intend to reproduce a few of my favorite articles here in the next few weeks but if you’re looking for something to read or listen to in the meantime, consider taking a moment to browse British Library Sounds, or the web archive of their later publication ‘Playback’.

Download “An Index of British Institute of Recorded Sound publications Bulletin and Recorded Sound, 1956-1984” (30 MB)

Just for fun – Ian J. Strange records penguins and albatrosses in the Falklands ca. 1974 for the British Library of Wildlife Sounds (BLOWS), a department of BIRS. Photo from ‘Recorded Sound’ no. 54.

ⁱ Reprinted in issue 52 as “Some notes on the Institute’s pre-history”, pp. 230-236

ARSC/RPTF Collections Directory Project Draft Now Online

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Post written by William R. Vanden Dries, Indiana University Bloomington 

ARSC and the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) are developing a national database to identify, map, and make searchable information regarding historical recordings, beginning with radio broadcasts. The initiative has its roots in the reports published by the Library of Congress, The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age (2010) and The Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan (2012). Following discussion between ARSC and the Radio Preservation Task Force, radio broadcast collections were identified as a high priority and an area in which the two groups could collaborate to initiate the national database of recorded sound collections recommended in the 2012 plan. Once the database is established for radio broadcast and radio-related collections and includes the bulk of known radio collections around the country, the scope of the database will expand to include additional collections.

ARSC agreed to be caretaker of the online website and database’s technological needs. Volunteers on ARSC’s Online Media Committee (OMC) executed the installation of the software needed for the online site, which is a Ruby on Rails site. The OMC continues to manage the technological needs of the site, and is working with the RPTF metadata team to update the information about the collections as metadata is gathered and edited.

The RPTF is taking the lead on gathering, editing, and updating the collection information included in the database. Prior to the start of the ARSC-RPTF collaboration, three RPTF teams worked for over a year identifying radio broadcast collections around the country. Metadata was gathered from the collection holders and compiled into one place. Gaps in the information were identified and the next phase of information gathering began to fill in gaps and review existing information with the collection holders. The RPTF and ARSC also created an online form for new collections to be added to the project.

ARSC and the RPTF are eager to continue pushing forward with the development of the site, and are looking for volunteers to help with metadata gathering, review, and editing. We are also looking for anyone with experience with Ruby on Rails that would like to assist with the design and maintenance of the online website and database. If you would like to volunteer with this project in any of these capacities, please contact William Vanden Dries at wrvandendries[at]gmail.com.

To view the site in its current, draft format, please visit arsc-audio2.org.

RPTF Directory

Phonograph Monthly Review, Now Online

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Post written by Mason Vander Lugt, National Recording Preservation Board / Library of Congress.

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Phonograph Monthly Review was founded by Axel B. Johnson in October 1926. It was the first American magazine about the appreciation and collecting of records by enthusiasts, and helped organize a budding culture of record collectors and scholars. You can now view a full run of the magazine on Archive.org through the work of the National Recording Preservation Board.

State of the Art

Phonograph Monthly Review (‘PMR’) was born into exciting times in the entertainment industry. Consumer radio had been on the ascent for several years, and with RCA’s formation of the NBC network in 1926, it looked ready for the first time to disrupt recording. Columbia and Victor had only the year before licensed Westrex’s electrical recording process, while Brunswick adapted General Electric’s pallophotophone system. Sometimes overlooked in the transition to electrical ‘recording’ are the equally innovative eletro-magnetic reproduction technologies, in the forms of the Brunswick Panatrope and Victor Electrola.

One of Columbia’s electrical reproduction offerings adapted users’ existing phonographs (PMR 4:11)

One of Columbia’s electrical reproduction offerings adapted users’ existing phonographs (PMR 4:11)

The improved fidelity of electrical recording and reproduction revived interest in recordings of classical music, which were somewhat shortchanged by the acoustic processes. Columbia debuted the ‘Masterworks’ line in late 1924, assembling longer works into albums (following the example of the Gramophone Co. / HMV) and presented complete symphonies, concertos, and chamber works often for the first time. Victor followed suit with the ‘Musical Masterpiece’ line in 1927, but added the innovation of automatically playing through the sides in sequence, creating the first commercially successful record changer in the form of the Automatic Orthophonic Victrola.

Columbia Masterworks Advertisement (PMR 1:3)

Columbia Masterworks Advertisement (PMR 1:3)

Creating the Collector

PMR features articles about the top orchestras and famous composers, and reviews of the most recent releases, and could have stopped there, but Johnson felt a higher purpose. He believed that through careful listening and discussion, anyone could attain a sophisticated appreciation of ‘serious’ music. The magazine staff were charter members and officers of the Boston Gramophone Society and encouraged the creation of and participation in the same.

This wasn’t an entirely new concept. PMR never concealed the fact that their model adapted the example set in England by Compton MacKenzie’s magazine Gramophone and the National Gramophonic Society (see ‘At Jethou’, 2:3 and ‘A Resumé’, 2:1). Both Gramophone and PMR aspired to be more than a magazine or a social club. In editorials, Johnson refers frequently to the ‘phonograph society movement’ or ‘phono-musical movement’, or ‘the cause’. The cause was a democratic, communal musical education, and this required a systematic study of the ‘literature’.

In ‘More Important than the Music: A History of Jazz Discography’, Bruce D. Epperson grants Gramophone the first formal discographical lists, but PMR the first freestanding discographical article, in Robert Donaldson Darrell’s ‘Dvorak’s Recorded Works’ (3:8). Darrell would go on to edit PMR and its successor Music Lover’s Guide, and would compile the influential ‘Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music’ in 1935.

PMR reinforced the collaborative culture through recurring ‘Phonograph Society Reports’ and ‘Phonograph Activities’ columns, as well as a robust correspondence column for those too remote to participate in person. The ‘Mart and Exchange’ column was another innovation, allowing readers to advertise records (or literature) they were looking to buy or sell.

PMR, Gramophone, and the various societies changed the relationship between composition, performance, and recording. Before recordings, one could comment on the merits of a composition, or on the qualities imparted by a conductor or performer’s interpretation of it. Recording a work, for better or worse, allowed listeners to share a fixed reference point – still an interpretive performance of a composition, but a particular instantiation of it that could be replayed and compared. Focusing on recordings didn’t end or undermine live performance or its appreciation, but created a new intellectual space and a new kind of enthusiast – the record collector. These values and practices were expanded and codified in the 1930s and 40s in jazz magazines like Down Beat and Record Changer.

The Music

Changes in technology and culture are interesting in retrospect, but PMR’s readers subscribed for the music. 1927-1932 was a golden age in American orchestral music, with the best orchestras led by some of the most legendary conductors. Leopold Stokowski was at the helm of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Serge Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Willem Mengelberg and Wilhelm Furtwangler alternately conducted the New York Philharmonic, while Arturo Toscanini guest conducted (Walter Damrosch led the New York Symphony Orchestra, then separate). Richard Strauss’ recordings with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra were imported by Brunswick. PMR’s profiles, histories and discographies of these institutions were its main attraction.

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The best American orchestras of the day

While PMR always focused on orchestral music, it also reviewed chamber music, instrumental solos and art songs, opera, light music, musical theater, band music, popular songs and instrumentals, dance music and foreign recordings. The reviews section reads like a ‘hall of fame’ of 20th century artists – violin by Heifetz and Kreisler, piano by Cortot, Godowsky and Paderewski. Jazz by Armstrong, Ellington and Waller. PMR didn’t explore popular artists with the depth of the composers and conductors, but included interviews with Leo Reisman (3:1) and Lee Morse (4:6), and a serial autobiography of Nat Shilkret (vol. 1).

The Recording Industry

PMR also featured articles on the recording industry past and present, like ‘How the Sounds Get Into Your Record by the Electrical Process’ (1:1), ‘Echoes from the OKeh Recording Studio’ (2:3) and ‘The First Years of the Phonograph’ (6:6). Despite frequent disdain for broadcasting among writers, PMR includes announcements that help ground recording in a wider media context, with articles like ‘The New Columbia Broadcasting System’ (1:12), ‘The Phonograph and the Sonal Film’ (4:11) and ‘Television’ (5:3). In one of PMR’s last issues, Sergei Rachmaninoff weighs in on recording vs. broadcast (6:3).

Ulysses “Jim” Walsh first published in PMR. His first article, ‘Pioneer Phonograph Advertising’ (3:6) reviews the preceding 25 years of the recording industry through print advertisements. After a pair of rambling articles titled ‘By the Way’ in 3:10-11, he writes a trio of remembrances of recording pioneers passed on – J.S. MacDonald (“Harry MacDonough”) (6:1-2), Sam H. Rous (“S.H. Dudley”) (6:4) and Anthony and Harrison (6:5). These last articles set the pattern for his prolific and influential column ‘Favorite Pioneer Recording Artists’ in Hobbies magazine.

Regular columns included ‘Record Budgets’, to assist readers in building a library without breaking the bank, ‘Phonographic Echoes’ to keep readers apprised of news, events and industry developments, and ‘British Chatter’ to keep the line open with the substantial gramophile contingent across the pond.

PMR for sale at H. Royer Smith Co., Philadelphia – ‘The World’s Record Shop’ (PMR 3:7)

PMR’s Legacy

After several years of contracting markets (records and otherwise), Phonograph Monthly Review printed its last in March 1932. The final issue begins poignantly with a memorial to John Philip Sousa, who died earlier in the same month. Johnson and Darrell went on to found the ‘Music Lover’s Guide’ magazine in New York in September 1932 which turned into ‘The American Music Lover’ (1935-1941) and ultimately ‘American Record Guide’, still publishing.

The full run of Phonograph Monthly Review can now be viewed on Archive.org, through the work of the National Recording Preservation Board. Thank you to professor, collector and antiquarian Dave Radcliffe of Blacksburg Virginia for lending the beautifully preserved complete run of the magazine that made this project possible.