The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

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GERDA LECHLEITNER (AUSTRIA)
NONA LOMIDZE (AUSTRIA, GEORGIA)
SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF
MULTIPART MUSIC ON EARLY SOUND DOCUMENTS
Introduction
As is generally known, there has been a long-lasting interest in multipart singing, which has already
been explained by early (comparative) musicologists in Berlin, e.g. by Erich M. von Hornbostel, Carl Stumpf
or Marius Schneider (cf. Ziegler, 2008), who based their findings to some extent on the analyses of the wax
cylinder recordings today housed in the Berlin Phonogrammarchiv.
<strong>The</strong> Vienna Phonogrammarchiv, in contrast to the Berlin Phonogrammarchiv, did not focus on ethnomu–
sicological recordings only, but also on language recordings, on acoustical phenomena such as cries of persons or
animals, environmental sounds etc. Since its foundation, the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv has therefore been called
a multidisciplinary archive. Sigmund Exner, together with colleagues from the humanities and sciences, announced
three key aspects for the collections in the founding motion: languages, music (especially from outside Europe), and
so-called voice portraits (Exner, 1900: 1-3). <strong>The</strong>se three areas soon came to include also recordings of shots, cries of
animals, etc. With that characterisation it was evident that recordings of multipart singing had not been made to any
great extent. Nevertheless, some recordings, even various “types” of multipart singing, can be found. But there was
also another reason why multipart singing was not recorded in great quantities: due to the technical insufficiency at
that time it was a big challenge to make a good recording with satisfying result. As will be shown, the researchers
and technicians had found some creative solutions and thus left – in respect to the possibilities of the time – rather
good recordings.
To give a more profound description and discussion of the “context” of the recordings, corresponding
to their origin and meaning at the time and later on, transcriptions were made. <strong>The</strong>se and their subsequent
interpretations are based on various types of multipart music recorded at the dawn of sound documentation.
<strong>The</strong> transcriptions are not detailed but should give an illustrative overview of the respective structure, mainly
in order to underline the interpretation and the ensuing perception as well as comparison. <strong>The</strong> examples include
songs only sung by men or women, sung by a mixed ensemble and by a choir accompanied by instruments.
<strong>The</strong> collections and their publication in a CD edition
<strong>The</strong> archive was founded without any stocks and therefore the starting point for its establishment was
somehow different from elsewhere (e.g. in Berlin where the recordings of a Siamese court orchestra in 1900
marked the first collections and thus the date of foundation, cf. Simon 2000: 25). In Vienna the challenge to be
solved was not the need to organise already existing sound collections, but rather the theoretical background
of archiving including technical and content-related implications. Archiving in a pragmatic sense means to
preserve the holdings in their best technical quality combined with an elaborate documentation including
technical data and content information.
How were the collections built up then? <strong>The</strong> regular recording activities reflecting the various tasks
addressed in the founding motion started only in 1901 when the newly invented equipment, the Archiv-