playback PLAYBACK: Editor Alan Ward, Production manager Richard Fairman, Layout Julie Rimmer Julie Layout Fairman, Richard manager Production Ward, Alan Editor PLAYBACK: pooGaeRbrsn PicturePost) (photo Grace Robertson, ‘DancingontheGreen1954’ Front cover photograph: http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive Website: [email protected] E-mail: 0171-4127441 Fax: 0171-4127440. Tel: LondonNW12DB 96 EustonRoad, National Sound The BritishLibrary Archive information contact For further t Pancras. St. in theworld andisbasedattheBritishLibrary’s new buildingat future issuesthrough thepost. of thisissue(ifyou have notdonesoalready) ifyou wishtoreceive orcompleteandsendinthetear-off slipattheend fax ore-mailus, the editoratNSA. Commentsare welcome andshouldbeaddressed to preservation. andnews from theworld ofsoundarchives andaudio activities, withinformation ontheNSA’s current andfuture times ayear, The NationalSound Archive isoneofthelargestsoundarchives phone, We Pleasewrite, have aspecialmailinglistfor PLAYBACK. on rhv NA.Itispublishedfree ofchargethree Sound Archive (NSA). PLAYBACK National isthebulletinofBritishLibrary ‘playback’ THE BULLETINOF THE NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE

21 SPRING 1999 ISSN 0952-2360 report on minimum cataloguing of oral history work generally. BBC what’s happening standards, prepared for the EU Radio Scotland have been carrying concerted action HARMONICA. out a separate interview project and Most of these papers will appear in it has been agreed that the recordings the next IASA journal, edited by and catalogue from this will also be Chris Clark (Head of Public Services), housed at the NSA. who chaired the session on wildlife and environmental recordings, the ■ Richard Ranft, Wildlife Sounds first on this subject at IASA for almost ■ Verification of data in the Curator, has prepared a new CD twenty years. He has played a leading National Discography, a database guide to the voices of 107 species of role in the IASA cataloguing rules owned and compiled by Music nightjars. It was published by group, which met for the last time in Alliance (as the combined MCPS ornithological publishers Pica Press Paris: the rules are expected to be and PRS are now known) takes in November and releases many ready for publication in May this year. place at the NSA where label unique recordings, from NSA and information and credits as they other bioacoustic collections in the ■ Oliver Berliner,whose grandfather actually appear on the records USA,collected by 60 recordists in 50 invented the gramophone in 1887, are compared with information countries. visited the NSA on 8 December on supplied in advance by record his way home from the Deutsche companies. The 200,000th product Grammophon centenary celebrations was added to the database recently. ■ The NSA celebrated its first year at St Pancras with a rather more ambitious in Hamburg. At a small reception It was My heart will go on, the single Christmas party than hitherto,fielding a jazz band largely composed of NSA staff. attended by Ruth Edge (Archivist at by Celine Dion (featured in Titanic) Inspired by recordings of Bix Beiderbecke’s small groups from the late 20s, the EMI Records Ltd), Keith Parker – the best selling single of the year band reworked mostly period arrangements,with two more modern Christmas (Assistant Curator, Communications, so far, and on two of the best selling numbers for the occasion, and an example from the impressive oeuvre of Toby Science Museum) and several of the albums of the year! Oakes (Drama and Literature Curator), sung by the composer, along with NSA’s most regular users, he several other classics. In the absence of a bass instrumentalist among our presented the NSA with an advance ■ The Millennium Oral History current ranks we were glad to welcome Gavin Holman of Information Systems, copy of a television programme Project, a joint venture between the Boston Spa, a very accomplished tuba player who joined us for rehearsals and called ‘Caruso for all – the Story of the BBC and the BL, and the largest oral the performance. The band and vocalist went on to serenade guests at the Gramophone’,on which he appears. history study ever mounted, has now ■ Nigel Bewley of the Technical opening of the Manuscript Reading Room at St Pancras on 4 January, a been under way since September. Section has been working on a performance which was again well received. Rob Perks, the NSA Oral History compilation of Dr Ian Russell’s curator, has been attending feed- Village Carols to be published by ■ The International Association of Sound and Audio-visual Archives 1998 back cluster meetings around the the Smithsonian. This indicates conference was held at the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris during country to monitor the material international recognition of Dr November.The guiding themes ‘improving access’ and ‘new media technology’ plus being collected by local radio stations Russell’s project to record, preserve the proximity of another new national library attracted a larger than usual and deal with problems as they are and stimulate the uniquely surviving

attendance by NSA staff.The NSA’s Director Crispin Jewitt spoke on ‘Copyright Janet Caddock arising.The interviewing programme Christmas singing traditions of south and national archives:the challenge of new technologies’,Rob Perks (Oral History is making good progress and gener- Yorkshire. His complete recordings, Curator) on ‘Oral history collections and their accessibility’ and Richard Ranft ating a great deal of local publicity, some already published on cassette (Wildlife Sounds Curator) on ‘Capturing and archiving wildlife sounds’, while which is beneficial to the NSA and with our assistance, are available for Antony Gordon of the cataloguing section summarised his recently acclaimed helps to raise awareness of the value listening at the NSA. 2 Oliver Berliner (right) with Crispin Jewitt, NSA Director posh speech an upper-class project by Prunella Scales

■ More and more over the last few ‘educated’ classes. I know a young, years I’ve noticed what I can only public-school-educated, regular Army describe as an invert snobbery in officer, who says ‘vurry good feed’, actors, in terms of speech. Young where his father would have said actors especially will, quite rightly, ‘vey good fawd’. take endless trouble to perfect a While a democratisation of regional or urban working class speech is, I believe, to be welcomed accent or dialect for a part, with on sociological grounds, I think as and actors of bygone years. I’m actresses, clergy, male and female Edwin Booth spoke by far the admirable success, but when they actors we should research and working with the speech expert aristocrats, members of the Royal ‘purest’ English of any of them!) – appear in, say, a play by Wilde or reflect the speech of the characters and coach at the National Theatre, family, public schoolboys, county and also recordings of Gladstone, Shaw or Noel Coward, they don’t we play from every walk of society Patsy Rodenberg, who was the first landowners, girls from boarding Neville Chamberlain, Winston seem to ask themselves, ‘How did as accurately as possible – and person to explain to me the schools before 1940, debutantes, Churchill and many other politicians. this particular person speak, given while tapes exist of regional and meaning of the phrase ‘stiff upper politicians from all parties, We can’t wait for our next visit: the life they led, the people they met urban dialects, it is very difficult lips’: it wasn’t anything to do with academics, society hostesses, although the project will take time and the period they lived in?’. nowadays to find records of people British phlegm or courage in the masters of foxhounds etc. My letter and ruthless editing, I’m sure it will I have always been fascinated from ‘grand’ backgrounds, or any face of adversity – it was members was passed on to Cathy Courtney, be of use to actors in future years, by variations in what I would call such people who are prepared to of the British Raj in India speaking who is Project Officer for the and a highly entertaining collection ‘posh’ speech – how, for instance, impart their speech habits or offer through their teeth, so that their National Life Story Collection, and into the bargain. It is wonderful to someone from a county family advice. I was delighted therefore, servants wouldn’t overhear! who felt that, ‘there might be a CD know that we have this Archive at before 1930, and even nowadays, will and indeed moved, to discover I had already written to Crispin in the project’, and a few weeks ago, the British Library and there is so very often say ‘gawn’ and ‘awf’ there was an interest at the National Jewitt, the director of the National Patsy and I spent a fascinating much interest and positive co- and ‘crawss’ instead of ‘gone’ and Sound Archive in compiling what I Sound Archive at the British Library, morning listening to recordings of operation. As an actor, I am very ‘off’ and ‘cross’. I began to wonder will call a library of ‘posh’ speech, and asked if we could hear the Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, Ellen grateful to the staff there, and as when the mid-Atlantic rolled ‘r’ and have already had a fascinating earliest recordings available of Terry and other Victorian and a citizen I’m very proud of the crept into speech of the English time there listening to politicians various speakers: actors and Edwardian actors – (the American whole resource. 3 photographer Maurice Yates. Leaders of the current generation include Nick Waplington, Zarina Bhimji, Roshini Kempadoo, Corinne Day and Anna Fox. Many histories are written without much regard for the influence of taste and commerce on the photographic aesthetic. With this in mind, influential figures such as Sue Davies, sound founder Director of the Photographers’ Gallery in London, Mark Haworth-Booth, Curator of Photographs at the V&A, camerawork veteran educationalist and historian Margaret Harker, Sotheby’s expert Philippe Garner, teacher and photographer Paul Hill, and the oral history of British photography curator/photographer Sunil Gupta have all been interviewed. Collectors have also influenced the market and preserved by Val Williams evidence.The lengthy interview with the late Helmut Gernsheim traces the development of one of Europe’s most important ■ With funding from the Arts Council of England and the Baring collections and its use as basis of the most significant post-war Foundation, ten years’ work on the Oral History of British history of photography written in the UK. Photography project reached a significant moment late in 1998, the 1930s, recounted life as a photographer, but also her Among the many people who made the project possible we with the publication of ‘Talking Photography’, an annotated friendship with Edith Tudor Hart and her childhood in India as must not forget the many different interviewers, including Grace catalogue of this ground-breaking collection of interviews. only daughter of the Viceroy. Godfrey Thurston Hopkins Robertson, whose own photo ‘Dancing on the Green 1954’ By the close of the 1980s, many key individuals active in documented his progress from press photographer to appears on the cover of this issue of Playback.The support and British photography in the 1920s and 30s had died, their photojournalist for Picture Post magazine, and in the USA, Stefan involvement of the Photography Collection at the Victoria & histories fragmented and unrecorded. The project was Lorant, then aged ninety-three, recalled (in a highly personal Albert Museum, and especially Mark Howarth Booth who took established in 1989 by Rob Perks (NSA Oral History Curator) twelve-hour interview) life as an editor in 1920s Berlin, of over as joint project co-ordinator, was also invaluable. and Val Williams (journalist and writer on photography) to Lilliput and Picture Post in the 1930s and later as an author and All the project interviews, together with much additional ensure that the lives of survivors from that period, and of leading publisher in the United States. material such as recorded talks and lectures, journalistic figures in later revivals up to the present day, escaped similar The project has given some priority to the 1960s and 70s interviews, radio and TV broadcasts and videos are available to oblivion.The interviews provide in addition a rich source for the revival which included the setting up of the Photographers’ the public in the NSA Listening & Viewing Service at St Pancras. study of the social and cultural fabric of the UK from the mid- Gallery, the radical Camerawork group in the East End of Copies of the catalogue, ‘Talking Photography’, edited by Val 1920s onwards. London, and the early years of Creative Camera under Bill Jay and Williams, Rob Perks and Martin Barnes, are available free from: The avant-garde studio photographer John Somerset Murray Peter Turner. Leading figures from the 1970s and 80s have also The Oral History Section was interviewed in his Norfolk home two years before he died been interviewed, including Martin Parr, Chris Steele-Perkins, British Library National Sound Archive in his eighties. He described his experiments with solarization, Jo Spence, Brian Griffin, Daniel Meadows, Fay Godwin, Peter 96 Euston Road his relationship with the Surrealist photographer Winifred Kennard, Markéta Luskacová and Mari Mahr. London NW1 2DB Casson and recalled exhibitions, places and people who would Various ‘specialists’ interviewed included innovative fine art Tel: 0171-412 7405 otherwise have been lost to research. Margaret Monck, photographers Karen Knorr, Hannah Collins and the late Helen Fax: 0171-412 7441 documentary photographer in the East End of London during Chadwick, police photographer John Heatley, and Royal Navy E-mail: [email protected] 4 digital goes versatile DVD originally meant ‘Digital Video Disc’, a version of the familiar 12-cm audio Compact Disc modified to carry moving pictures.To the new DVD format achieve this, at least seven or eight times as much digital data must by Peter Copeland be held. When development began, it was soon realised that the format could be used as an increased-capacity CD-ROM, so Even so a moving digital image must be ‘compressed’ to fit. In capacity to reproduce this effect, so it is eliminated by massive the words underlying the acronym were hastily changed to this context, to ‘compress’ means attempting to exploit psycho- digital processing first. ‘Digital Versatile Disc’. Now, new audio applications and many optic features of the human eye, allowing data size to be reduced DVD Video is designed to give results ‘comparable to VHS’, since modifications of the proposals are fighting their way through without noticeable effect. Unfortunately, visual perception is it is known that 99% of viewers are happy with VHS.And JVC (who ‘standards-setting’ procedures. No new generic name has complex and differs from one customer to the next, so some invented VHS) are now selling ‘S-VHS’ video machines, which can emerged;so the medium is now just called ‘DVD’! people find the effect of the compression obtrusive. For me, the easily double the definition, for only about fifty pounds more than This history of the name reflects the history of the medium clearest problem is on areas of similar colour and intensity – an normal VHS machines – and they will record as well! So for the itself. International standardisation, a crucial feature of such media area of grass, say, or a piece of background patterned wallpaper. present the NSA will continue to record and store videos with as the compact cassette and the CD and their related recording When the image is static there isn’t a problem; but when the important sound on hi-fi VHS. We don’t envisage changing our processes, has not been achieved. So despite its massive storage camera pans, the effect stays static in the frame, so the grass or policy for the time being. Use and playback of DVD Video is also capacity, the advice to archivists and conservators must be: wait wallpaper looks as though I’m seeing it through a piece of dirty seriously affected by international copyright issues: there is no until the smoke clears – if it ever does – before investing in DVD. frosted glass over the camera lens. ‘world standard’. We have also noted the invention a couple of Nevertheless a feature of DVD which has always impressed all years ago of solid-state blue lasers, with the potential to read a Video applications except the most dedicated film buffs is the steadiness of the further three-fold increase in data on a 12-cm disc, while still The basic new idea was to make each DVD disc with at least two pictures. Normal cinema films suffer ‘sprocket weave’, where small allowing old machines to play the CD layer.This could circumvent layers. The first layer was (and is) essentially the same as the random fluctuations in the framing occur, because mechanical most of the problems of combining audio and video, but it seems present compact disc (or CD-ROM or CD-Video), comprising a sprocket-holes aren’t perfect. DVD in any case has insufficient far too sensible! single side with capacity for about 650 megabytes of digital data, for Recent NSA acquisitions in the DVD format which there is a world standard enforced by Philips’s licensing of the original CD patents.A DVD will have a second translucent layer bonded on top of this – it’s barely visible to the naked eye. All current CD machines should be able to read the 650-megabytes of data underneath, focussing an infra-red laser through the translucent layer; but a DVD machine will also read the translucent layer with a red (not “infra-red”) laser-beam. The shorter wavelength can resolve more detail from this part of the sandwich, which will store about 4.5 gigabytes of data (a sevenfold increase). 5 Audio applications So far, I’ve been concentrating on video applications because these are emphasised in current marketing. But as a sound recording medium, DVD also presents problems for the NSA and sound archives generally. For a start there are two different compression systems for the digital audio on videos, so calling world music archives manufacturers must now pay for two lots of licences to make hardware which can play all DVD videos.For audio-only discs,one the ‘archiving the music world’ project proposal is to record sound with similar (compressed) Surround- Sound technology, simply so customers may hear a difference by Marie-Laure Manigand from old-fashioned ‘stereo’. But little thought seems to have been given to the differences between video and audio-only listening, ■ Last September, the International out the world. The project is unique music, and providing an where there isn’t a screen to reduce the tendency of listeners to Music Collection (IMC) at the NSA receiving financial support from the educational resource and source of turn their heads. In any case audio recording involving digital embarked on a six-month research NSA, Ralph Vaughan Williams Fund inspiration, are the same as in the compression is worth avoiding in all archival situations, especially project entitled ‘Archiving the Music and the International Association of West. But many archives (which are if a satisfactory uncompressed alternative is available. In fact there World’, which aims to compile Sound and Audio-visual Archives not always labelled as such, often are also two quite different proposals for uncompressed digital a database of collections of recorded (IASA). being housed in radio stations, encoding on DVD aimed at audio buffs, but as I write there seems music throughout the world, Sound archives are relatively new universities, and with record no prospect of resolving this dispute. Until it is and the highlighting their existence, con- and unfamiliar in parts of Africa, the companies or with individuals) technology proves successful in the marketplace (which seems dition, status, accessibility, and plans Caribbean, Latin America, Eastern suffer from lack of financial support, rather unlikely because it won’t be easy to hear a difference from for their preservation. The project Europe and Asia. But widespread basic equipment and materials, and ordinary stereo CDs), DVD will not be a good prospect as a long- focuses particularly on countries social and political changes in all sufficient expertise.This can lead to term carrier. Moreover, following a new interpretation of the where resources and expertise are these regions throughout the 20th deterioration and loss of Philips original 1982 patents, it has just been announced that the scarce, and where existing century have in turn led to greater recordings. Knowledge of the ‘downwards compatibility’ feature (where recordings on the first collections are in danger of being awareness of the need to preserve extent and content of sound layer could be played on any CD player – a positive feature for lost, i.e. mostly on ‘developing’ tradition.This project is a first step in recording collections in developing those interested in the long term) may be abandoned, because countries. It is a joint venture with responding to the new demand. countries is limited, as no substantial the second layer breaks the patented specification for the Music for Change, a new charity Some archives are well financed research has been carried out to first layer! working with partner organisations and structured; others are very document them. I can see some specialist engineering areas where DVD might such as Amnesty International, small, with little or no budget, and This precarious situation was be valuable; but they are areas where there’s no pressing need for Christian Aid, VSO and the World are run on a voluntary basis. The made evident to me when I spent change. So I propose to follow my own advice – wait and see! Music Network, to support benefits of sound archives for four weeks with two different community music projects through- developing countries in preserving archives in Ghana in 1996.The first 6 Traditional Music, our project project, have been identified. Our possible, to those collections which will look beyond collections in plan is to make contact with all of most need it. Fundraising will be the established institutions, where them and gain information about key aspect of this process. possible locating collections in radio the contents and activities of their While information about the stations, universities, and in private archives. For this we have designed more established, national archives hands. Our data will feed into a questionnaire in three of the most around the world is generally easy established programmes such as UNESCO’s Memory of the World which aims ‘to guard against collective amnesia calling upon the preservation of the valuable archive

ie-Laure Manigard holdings and library collections all

Mar over the world ensuring their wide dissemination’, and will help to organisation, the International This privately-funded and run raise the profile of music recording Centre for African Music and collection of rare shellac discs collections within the ‘owning’ Dance, located at the University suffered from a lack of the most countries and encourage local of Ghana and run by renowned basic facilities needed for proper policy-making with regard to ethnomusicologist, Professor Nketia, preservation. Sleeveless discs were their long-term preservation. Data had most of the facilities a small piled on top of each other for want collected will be important for archive like this could hope for, of shelving space. Unique records ethnomusicologists, sound archives ie-Laure Manigard including proper shelving space, were played time and time again on and music students in many Mar air-conditioned and humidity- an old gramophone in the absence countries, and is expected to spoken languages in the world – to come by, we still need to make controlled storage, recording/ of newer recording and playback stimulate further research and English, French and Spanish. contact with many more small,private playback and computer equipment, equipment. The owner relied investigation, and create links On completion and return the collections. If you know of any, and was expanding fast. However, exclusively on occasional donations between institutions leading to questionnaires will be translated the International Music Collection its archivist was finding it hard to and personal funds. These are just international cooperation. and analysed. We are intending to would be pleased to receive gain sound archiving expertise illustrations of some of the The research for the project publish the results as a directory, information about them! Please locally. In addition, the funding from problems encountered widely. We is now well under way, with two available to every participating contact us at the NSA (address, an international source might not hope that our research will enable researchers spending a full day per organisation on request. The phone,and fax numbers on back page; prove secure in the long-term. us to identify them more clearly. week chasing up addresses and information could then be used by e-mail: [email protected]. The second archive, the By drawing on the IMC’s own contacts, and inputting them on a these same organisations to link up Gramophone Record Museum and world-wide network of contacts specially-designed Access database. and work together, preparing for photo (left): Documenting the making of Research Centre, located in the and linking with members of IASA, So far, as many as 600 different the next and more ambitious step drums in Eastern Ghana photo (right): Performance of Dagaaba provincial town of Cape Coast, the Society for Ethnomusicology, archives, private collections and of the project: to provide assistance, music in Cape Coast, Ghana – a tradition offered a different set of problems. and the International Council for other people likely to inform the in whatever way necessary and yet to be documented 7 nsa user profile events sir neville marriner

Sir Neville Marriner is one of the world’s leading conductors.After studying the violin ■ A Century of Recorded Music at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire, he started his career as a Presentations on developments in recorded sound from the time of Edison and Berliner. chamber and orchestral musician. Playing in various London orchestras gave him the Contact: John Gilks,The Old School, High Street, experience of working with some of the legendary conductors of the century, Nawton,York,YO62 7TT Suzie E Maeder including Toscanini and Furtwängler, Cantelli and Karajan. In 1959 he founded the April 2-5 – At Higham Hall, Cockermouth Academy of St. Martin’s in the Fields, which under his leadership quickly became one Tel: 01768-776276 May 8 – At Urchfont Manor, Devizes of the foremost international chamber orchestras. There he gravitated from the concertmaster’s seat towards an increasing amount of conducting. His first ■ Performance Studies Conference 1999

eturn this slip to The fifth conference, called ‘Mapping the undis- appointment as a conductor was with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and he covered realms of Performance Studies: Boundaries, has subsequently been music director of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Radio Hinterlands and Beyond’, will be held at the Symphony Orchestra in Stuttgart. He was knighted in 1985 and was awarded the Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1995 University of Wales,Aberystwyth. by the French Ministry of Culture. Contact: Heike Roms, 1 Laura Place, Aberystwyth,Wales, SW23 2AU London NW1 2DB When did you first use the with Brahms. If you can’t get the such as the Philadelphia are Tel: 01970-621517. Fax: 01970-622831

please fill in and r E-mail: [email protected] , National Sound Archive? composer in the flesh then a under-recorded because of union Website: http://www.nyu.edu./pages/psi It was in the 1960s when I was recording is the closest thing. strictures. April 9-12 making a record for EMI of the Some recordings are historical e to be ■ lighter Elgar pieces and wanted to documents and therefore have a What is the most important Friends of NSA Wildlife Section

96 Euston Road, Talks by Dr Jonathan Gordon (Oxford University) on

, hear Elgar’s own performances of significant value. Another valuable part of the holdings to you?

e whale acoustics and by Anthony Walker on duetting ould lik these works. That was when I use for musicians is to hear The composer/conductors are birds to be held at the British Library, at 6.00pm. chiv actually went to listen at the recordings of unusual repertoire. the most important to me, most of Contact: Richard Ranft (NSA) Ar Sound Archive for the first time whom are not good as conductors Tel: 0171-412 7402. Fax: 0171-412 7441 E-mail: [email protected] but members of the Academy of Will sound recordings play an - although Boulez is an exception. April 27 St. Martin in the Fields used to important role for musicians Britten was also good; the ■ Oral History Society Annual Conference rehearse in the lecture hall at the in the future? orchestra grasped Stravinsky’s A two-day conference on ‘Landscapes of Memory: s mailing list and w NSA premises in Exhibition Road. It is difficult to know where the intentions.Tippett was bad. Oral History and the Environment’, to be held at the

y National Sound I think the NSA should be an classical audience is at the University of Sussex, Brighton. establishment for making music as moment. The availability of music Would you suggest changes Contact: Caroline Barnard, Landscapes of Memory Conference Administrator, Centre for Continuing well as housing it! on record is important because to the NSA services? Education, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RG many performing musicians can’t No, but why is it so little known? E-mail: [email protected] What is the value of archive keep abreast of what is on offer; Public relations are weak and May 15-16 eady on the NSA’ it seems to be kept a secret. It is sound recordings for musicians, of course, can’t afford ■ British Musicological Societies’Conference The British Librar musicians? to buy recordings! If symphony not known to professional The third triennial conference will be held at the

e not alr University of Guildford. CK, The closer one can get to the orchestras become too expensive musicians and could be advertised A composers’ intentions the better. recordings become very in union publications, the BBC Contact: Christopher Mark, Dept. of Music,

YB University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 5XH ou ar I worked with Pierre Monteux important. It is a great pity that Music Magazine or Classic FM Tel: 01483-259317. Fax: 01483-259386 If y 8 PLA ADDRESS and he had played piano quartets many of the American orchestras magazine. E-mail: [email protected] July 15-18