Arnold Adriaan Bake South Asian Music Collection
Number of items in collection: 87
Short description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
Arnold Adriaan Bake’s [1899-1963] collection of recordings from South Asia have been a great resource for many academics across several disciplines. The British Library is actively engaged with a number of international academics and communities who are working with wax cylinder recordings from the Arnold Adriaan Bake archive to enhance the documentation for these recordings. They are therefore being released in regional batches as research progresses.
Long description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
Arnold Adriaan Bake’s [1899-1963] collection of recordings from South Asia have been a great resource for many academics across several disciplines. The British Library is actively engaged with a number of international academics and communities who are working with wax cylinder recordings from the Arnold Adriaan Bake archive to enhance the documentation for these recordings. They are therefore being released in regional batches as research progresses.
Bake was a Dutch ethnomusicologist noted asa primary pioneer of the discipline and one of the foremost international academic experts on South Asian music. His recordings on wax cylinder, tefi-band, reel-to-reel tape and film from successive field trips, were made throughout South Asia with principle studies in Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, in 1925-29, 1931-34, 1937-46 and 1955-6.
Bake’s recordings document religious music found throughout South Asia, where he recorded festivals, weddings, funerals, religious practices and recitations. In addition Bake documented folk music and dance, including the stick dances and hobby horse customs which appear in European traditions and a thoroughly comprehensive study of the vocal and instrumental music of Nepal.