Klaus Wachsmann Uganda Collection

Long description:

Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.

The "foremost pioneering scholar in African music", Wachsmann made roughly 1,500 unique recordings of indigenous music in Uganda, most of which have never been published before. This collection dates from the late 1940s, when Wachsmann was curator of the Uganda Museum in Kampala, and includes field recordings and performances at the Museum.

Klaus Klaus Wachsmann (1907-1984) was a pioneering scholar of African music. He was born in Germany, and studied musicology and comparative musicology with Blume, Schering, Hornbostel and Sachs at the University of Berlin. He and his wife went to Uganda as guests of the Church Missionary Society in 1937, in order to work on a "free assignment in the border field of music and languages", and with the promise of recording equipment to be sent over from Germany. The outbreak of war delayed this and equipment only arrived in 1948, by which time he had been appointed curator of the Uganda Museum in Kampala.

His collection of over 1500 recordings is the most comprehensive collection of Ugandan music: an archive of the pre-independent and pre-Amin era. It covers 26 different culture groups (out of a total of 37). He also recorded two tapes in Tanzania and was not exclusive in his definition of music, also recording praise songs and epic tales.

Wachsmann was probably the first ethnomusicologist to make analytical recordings, using the technology to assist with transcription and analysis.

Despite the huge number and variety of his recordings, Wachsmann was quick to criticise his "many omissions" such as xylophone recordings. This was due perhaps to the fact that he had employed many xylophone players at the Uganda Museum as attendants, who “played every day under my nose” but not often into his microphones! But such a living museum was itself an innovation, emulated around the world today

All recordings on this site are governed by licence agreements.