Later
Indian Recordings
The
disc on the left above was recorded
by Franz Hampe in 1905 in Meerut, a
small town about 40 miles northeast
of Delhi. It was in the area surrounding
this town and Dehli that the Hindustani
language developed. Alan Kelly identified
this recording, together with many others,
as having been made in Rangoon in Burma.
The negative image on the right below
shows clearly that the record was processed
in Calcutta.
Will
Gaisberg left London shortly after March
1906, accompanied by George Dillnutt,
and spent about seven months from May
through November in India, where he
made 1,254 ten-inch and 148 twelve-inch
recordings in Calcutta, Lucknow, Hyderabad,
Madras, Rangoon, and Delhi. Several
labels used for these recordings are
shown below.
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Bombay
1906
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Delhi
1906
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Calcutta
1906
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Lucknow
1906
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The
recording date and location of the disc
on the left above is unknown, although
it was probably recorded between February
1903 and the end of November 1907. The
disc on the right was recorded by George
Dillnutt around 1920 and processed in
Calcutta, with a matrix number 3464ak.
The two discs shown below were recorded
by Dillnutt in Mysore in August 1910,
and were processed in Calcutta. The
recordings are in Sanskrit and Canarese,
two of the 22 official languages of
India.
The
disc on the left below was recorded
in July 1910 in the Madras presidency,
and processed in the Calcutta plant.
India consists of 28 separate states,
each with an official language. Tamil,
together with Sanskrit, Bengali, and
Hindi, is one of the oldest languages
in the world, having developed in the
Tamil region of southern India and in
Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon. The recording
on the right was undoubtedly manufactured
by the Gramophone Company in Calcutta
after August 1910. Bhagat Kanwar (1885
─
1928) was a renowned Indian literary
figure, and is regarded as a saint in
the Sindhi religion.
In
1909, the Gramophone Company of London
sent Franz Hampe on an epic 5,000 mile
journey across the southern regions
of the Russian Empire. From the Causasus
Mountains to the deserts of Central
Asia, he recorded the various cultures
and ethnic groups he encountered. What
resulted was an incredibly intimate
view of pre-Soviet life, in the form
of almost 1,200 music recordings. Now,
for the first time in over 90 years,
a representative sample from the expedition
can be heard, from Caucasian male choirs
to classical maqam singers from Bukhara
and the Ferghana Valley, and including
several musicians who have attained
legendary status in the intervening
decades, such as Jabbar Karyagdy from
Baku/Shushi and Mulla Tuichi Tashmuhammedov
from Tashkent From GEORGIA, ARMENIA,
AZERBAIJAN, CHECHNYA and other culture
groups in the northern Caucasus, as
well as AFGHANISTAN, KAZAKHSTAN, TAJIKISTAN,
UZBEKISTAN and XINJIANG in Central Asia,
they were recorded at a point when few
of these names appeared on any map.
The
following excerpts from W. Prentice
on the Internet Musigi Dunyasi website
(http://www.musiqi-dunyasi.az/Magazine3/articles/05/05.html)
describe in detail the route and activities
of Franz Hampe during his six-month
sojourn. Items in brackets have been
added by the author.
"Scattered
among the 10,000 or so 78rpm discs
held by the International Music Collection
(IMC) were 46 ten-inch records, each
recorded and released before the First
World War, some in the Caucasus and
some in Russian Turkestan (now known
as Central Asia), by the Gramophone
Company’s regional office in Tiflis.
The company began operations there
in 1901, continuing after the war
forced their departure in May 1918.
Each record stands as a tantalizing
artifact in its own right, and when
considered together, they help construct
a cultural picture of the region during
its final pre-Soviet years. As they
were sold originally in their "home"
regions, it is not known how most
of them came to be in the IMC. We
do know that ten were donated by the
daughter of Philips Price, an economist,
traveler, and journalist who based
his 1912 book Siberia on his trip
across the land, through what is now
Tuva, and into Mongolia. He accompanied
Douglas Carruthers, who went on to
write the definitive early account
of the region, Unknown Mongolia (1913).
It is quite likely that Price picked
up his records on this trip. With
one exception from 1907, the remaining
36 discs all feature at least one
side recorded in 1909, and none were
recorded later, suggesting that they
were purchased within a relatively
narrow timespan, possibly by only
one or two collectors.
"Thanks
to the systematic approach of the
Gramophone Company, the matrix numbers
stamped into the runoff grooves on
each side tell us in coded form, who
recorded the song, approximately when,
and in what order. We know that one
of the sides was recorded by William
Sinkler Darby in 1901 (the year ten-inch
records first appeared), three were
recorded by Franz Hampe from Berlin
in 1903-4, thirteen by his brother
Max in 1907, 75 by Franz Hampe in
1909 and two by the Englishman Edmund
Pearse in 1911.
"By
arranging the 765 recordings made
in 1909 in chronological order, the
locations stated on the labels show
us the route taken by Hampe, starting
in the northern Caucasus, then to
Tiflis in Georgia, down to Alexandropol
in Armenia, through Azerbaijan and
across the Caspian Sea to Merv in
Turkestan, heading east to the border
with Chinese Turkestan via Bukhara
(then the capital of a nominally independent
emirate), Samrkand, Tashkent, and
various other small towns. The precise
route through Turkestan was somewhat
haphazard, until considered on a contemporary
map, where we can see that he was
following the only extant railway
in the region.
"Having
arrived in Tiflis for the beginning
of his expedition, Hampe faced a round
trip of over 3,000 miles with extremely
delicate equipment, through difficult
and no doubt sometimes dangerous circumstances.
Tj Theobald Noble, who recorded for
the Pathé Company in the same
region, described in a contemporary
account traveling for eight hours
on horseback through the Caucasus
to audition a single choir, only to
be ambushed and robbed by bandits
on the return journey.
"Although
towns along the railway route through
Turkestan were their main market there,
the company was keen to expand. A
letter from Fred Tyler, the manager
in Tiflis, to the London Head Office
in 1911, explains that an employee
was being sent to the more remote
regions, taking horses and donkeys
loaded with gramophones and records.
He was instructed to travel from town
to town, giving demonstrations and
making sales where possible.
"The
labels on the discs state the culture
group to which each song belongs.
From the northern Caucasus fro example,
the IMC holds recordings of Chechen,
Ingush, Kumyk, Kabardin and Ossetian
music, as well as Georgian, Armenian
and Persian-Tartar (Azeri) recordings.
All of the major Central Asian cultural
groups are represented, as well as
musicians from Afghanistan who were
recorded in Merv [in May 1909], and
from Chinese Turkestan, recorded in
Margelian [in August 1909].
"Hampe’s
route in 1909 was typical of that
taken by the other recordists, and
he recorded several musicians who
had recorded before and would be again.
Bagrat Bagramov, a singer from Tiflis
for example, had already proved himself
popular through records on previous
trips, and so in [May] 1909 recorded
30 titles, significantly more than
most other musicians. Accompanied
by two duduk players and known simply
as Bagrat, he recorded four instrumental,
with himself playing hand-drum, and
26 songs; nine are sung in Armenian,
seven in Georgian and ten are Persian-Tartar.
Tiflis was known as a particularly
cosmopolitan city at that time, and
the collection bears this out. Armenian
and Georgian musicians were willing
and able to play Armenian, Georgian
and Azeri music, as musicians such
as Bagrat demonstrate. Azeri musicians,
on the other hand, such as the incredible
singer Dzhabbar Kariagdiev (DZHADBAR
KARPIYAGDIEV in Kelly’s catalog),
apparently concentrated on Azeri music.
Like Bagrat, Kariagdiev was obviously
highly regarded by the Gramophone
Company, recording 25 titles in May
1909, twelve of which had appeared
on record by October of that year,
according to a contemporary catalogue.
The IMC holds six recordings of Bagrat
and tow of Dzhabbar Kariagdiev. Altogether,
Hampe recorded 60 hours’ worth of
music in the region between April
and September of that year, over 55
hours of which were released on ten
and twelve inch 78rpm discs. Solo
male vocalists with instrumental accompaniment
proved to be most popular in the Caucasus
and Russian Turkestan, followed by
choirs in the former and vocal duets
and trios in the latter. The recordists
were aware that the acoustic technology
of the time could pick up and reproduce
strong voices more effectively than
it could most musical instruments,
and so relatively few instrumental
titles were recorded. The relative
lack of female vocal recordings, at
least in Turkestan, may be partly
illuminated by the following excerpt
from Fred Tyler’s memoirs: To obtain
women’s voices it is sometimes necessary
to make records in their own quarters,
as, being Mohammedans, they could
not visit a public caravanserai with
propriety. In order, therefore, to
avoid scandal, we sometimes packed
all our equipment on a cart and set
out after dark to set up our studio
in the woman’s "house".
"From
Bukhara, during the 1911 recording
trip, Edmund Pearse wrote home that
‘in Samarkand we made some records
of Harem women, a thing that has never
been done before. We had to take the
machine to the house of the chief
magistrate and set up there, who thereupon
brought forth the women, and gave
them permission to uncover themselves
(only their faces, however). It was
quite romantic, especially as it all
had to be done after ten o’clock at
night.’
"The
Gramophone Company’s motives for recording
in the region were purely commercial.
In recording such a vast catalogue
of indigenous music, their first thoughts
were of increased sales of gramophones
it would encourage. Nonetheless, in
deliberately setting out to record
a representative selection of local
music, they created what would later
become an invaluable resource for
different cultures who, following
the break-up of the Soviet Union,
feel a strong need to reconnect with
their pre-Soviet heritage.
"It
is not known how many of these discs
have survived in their respective
localities, but it seems unlikely
that many have. Over the past few
years, researchers from former Soviet
territories, including Georgia and
Adygea (Circassia) have visited the
NSA and the British Library, consulting
the discs and microfilmed documentation
relating to the Gramophone Company.
Some of those musicians recorded have
become national folk legends, such
as Magomet Khfgudzh, an Adygean accordionist
recorded on several trips, who, along
with all the adult males in his village
was shot by the Russian army during
the war of 1918. One recording of
his survives in the IMC (NSA Ref ICS0055110).
His story and those of a great many
others are waiting to be researched
and told, and there has never been
a better time to unearth them."
Hampe’s
route can be followed from the recording
sessions listed in Kelly’s catalogs.
Starting in Vladikavkas (at one time
Ordzhonikidze) in April 1909, he proceeded
to Tiflis in Georgia, Merv in what is
now Turkmenistan, Tashkent, Kokand,
Skobelev, and Kashgar in Uzbekistan,
back to Tiflis in late August 1909 before
proceeding to what was probably Kutaisi
in Georgia, and then returned to Moscow
in early October. These travels resulted
in one 7-inch, some 1,062 10-inch, and
31 12-inch discs.
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Chinese
label
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Indian
label
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The
first Persian records were made in 1899
in London by Emile Berliner's Gramophone
Company, featuring poems of Hafez, Ferdowsi
and Zahir e Faryabi recited by an Indian
called Dr. Ahmad) on 7" without paper
label records. The disc on the left
below is a 10-inch Berliner 12201 made
in Baku on February 5, 1902. That on
the right is a 7-inch Berliner 22971
made in Tiflis (Russia) on February
15, 1902 by Emile Berliner's Gramophone
co as Persian or Persian Tartar.
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Berliner
12201, February 5, 1902
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Berliner
22971 February 15, 1902
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The
unusual label shown above recently came
to the author’s attention. It is listed
in Kelly’s catalog as
SA MAJESTÉ IMPÉRIALE
MOUZAFEREDIN CHAH
(His Imperial Majesty the
Shah of Persia)
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| 968 |
16-1-06 |
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Speech
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(original spoilt)
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| 969 |
16-1-06 |
2-11002 |
do
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| 970 |
16-1-06 |
2-11000 |
do
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| 971 |
16-1-06 |
2-11001 |
do
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Max
Hampe made the two discs shown below
in Teheran, Persia in January 1906.
These were from the first recording
sessions, comprised of 148 10-inch discs
and only eleven 12-inch discs. The disc
on the left below seems to have been
recorded in 1908 and manufactured in
Calcutta. Although the label gives the
language as Chinese, Alan Kelly indicates
that it is probably Bengali. The disc
on the right below was recorded in the
Madras Presidency in July 1910.
The
four discs below were recorded in Tiflis,
the two on the top by Franz Hampe in
February 1902 and May 1909, respectively.
Those on the bottom were recorded by
Edmond Pearse in late July, 1911. The
disc on the top right was recorded in
Tiflis, despite the indication of Baku.
All Persian recordings were processed
in the Riga plant.
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February
13, 1902
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Tiflis,
July, 1911
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February
6, 1912
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[Author’s
note: from the Wikipedia website ─
The kamancheh, kamānche,
kamāncha
or
qyamancha (Persian: 
,
Azeri: kamança), referred
to on the top left label below, is a
Persian and Azeri instrument related
to the violin. …This instrument is widely
played in classical Mugham music of
Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
with slight variations in the structure
of the instrument. Kemenche is a Persian word
derived from the word keman(=bow,
curve)" and suffix -che (gives
"small" meaning) means "little instrument
played by bow". The same instrument
is called "kevançe" in Kurdish
and "kemençe" in Turkish. The
kamancheh is the only bowed string instrument
in classical Persian and Kurdish music.
In
central Asia many instruments can be
the origin of kemenche. Studies show
that even there some different names
like KIYAK and IKLIG the name of instrument
played by a bow is generally KEMENECHE
among the Mongol and Turk tribes in
central and far Asia.
In Turkey, different instruments are
called kemenche. The Blacksea Kemenche
and the Türkmen Kemenche (Southeastern
Kemenche) are used in folk music. The
instrument used in Turkish Classical
Music is called as Classical Kemenche
In some parts of Asia and Europe one
can see some instruments very similar
to Turkish classical kemenches with
different names like LYRA in Greece,
GADULGA in Bulgaria, REBAB in some Arabic
countries. On the other hand also you
can find similar instruments like Turkmen
kemenche in Iran, Azerbaijan and Armenia.
]
