Historical Sound Recordings Yale University

1. Historical Sound Recordings Yale University The historical 78 rpm records project and other rare holdings at Yale Kendall Crilly, Diane Napert

2. Cataloging Project, The beginning • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation called a meeting to check status of large sound archives in U.S. • Established that bibliographic control was lacking, particularly for 78s • Needed bibliographic control before could embark on other projects such as digitization

3. Planning Grant • Planning grant was requested from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation by three institutions in 2004 and approved • These institutions were: • Yale University, Historical Sound Recordings Collection • Stanford University, Archive of Recorded Sound • New York Public Library, Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound

4. Planning Grant • Planning activities took place from July 1, 2004 to January 31,2005

5. Planning included: • Better organization of sound recordings • More accurate counts of sound recordings • Analysis of availability and quality of copy • Time studies for various formats (78s, LPs, cassettes)

6. View of 78s housed in Mudd Library at Yale

7. Numbers of Recordings • 853,162 commercial recordings at Yale, Stanford and Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound • Over 320,000 78 rpm recordings – mostly uncataloged

8. Cataloging Samples • Cataloging sample showed high rate of copy for multi-disc sets (92%) • Low rate for single 78 rpm recordings (7%)

9. The Grant was awarded! • Mellon awarded a grant of $789,000 starting in 2006 for cataloging of 78 rpm recordings

10. Catalogers Hired • Stanford University hires Frank Ferko June 2006 • New York Public Library for the Performing Arts hires Heeseop Regent July 2006 • Yale University hires Diane Napert September 2006

11. Structure of work • Yale was slated to catalog A-D labels • Stanford E-R • Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives S-Z • Syracuse approved by Mellon to join project in March 2008, focused on Decca

12. The numbers • The project contributed over 24,000 records to OCLC through November 2009 (figure includes only 2008 for Syracuse, approx. 3,500, and some upgraded copy) • Volume figures would be higher due to multi-disc sets and multiple copies • Yale able to extend project a few months with money from Yale Class of ’45W and add several hundred more records

13. Overlap in Collections • Stanford brought in 19,000 bib records to their system, many of which were contributed via the project • Yale had 63% hit rate against Stanford’s Edison bib records, less than 1% for Gramophone (Yale’s holdings are mostly Scandinavian)

14. The bibliographic records • Access points were added for composers, lyricists, arrangers, performing groups (but not each player within a named group), main performers, conductors, speakers • Attempts were made to connect arias to the correct opera and excerpted songs to the correct musicals (mostly successful)

15. The labels • Over 360 labels worked on • The largest included Brunswick, Capitol, Columbia, Decca, Edison, Gramophone and Victor

16. Yale Labels

17. More labels

18. And more

19. The presentation for ARSC (Stanford meeting) was called “Label Lust”

20. Société des Phonographes Bettini, Paris, ca. 1900 Verdi’s Trovatore. Balen del suo sorriso, arranged, in French Fernand Baer, bass ; with piano acc. Other Labels

21. Other Labels Black Swan, New York, 1921 Down home blues by Tom Delaney Ethel Waters ; with Cordy Williams' Jazz Masters Later recorded work for Columbia, 1925

22. Other Labels • Germany, Christschall, ca. 1931 • Obrecht. Missa 'Malheur me bat‘. Dona nobis pacem • Münchener Domchor ; Ludwig Berberich, conductor

23. The web-site • Hired web designer, Nilou Moochhala, http://www.nymdesign.com/ • http://www.library.yale.edu/musiclib/hsr/

24. Image of web-site

25. The recordings • Shape note singing • Musicals, operas, zarzuelas, operettas, incl. H.M.S. Pinafore translated into Yiddish “Der Shirtz” • Comedy skits • American Indian rituals • Political speeches, American and British • Campbell’s Pork and Beans Review (Andrews Sisters) • Art songs, sacred songs, popular music, jazz • Golf and dance instruction, parakeet lessons • Puzzle records

26. African languages Arabic Armenian Catalan Church Slavonic Chinese Czech German Danish Dutch Estonian Finnish French Greek Gaelic, Irish Haitian French Creole Hawaiian Languages

27. Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Italian Japanese Latin Latvian Lithuanian Maltese Maori Norwegian Polish Portuguese Quechua Romanian Russian Spanish Swedish Ukrainian Yiddish Languages (cont.)

28. Languages (cont.) • Plus a few others • A few languages only occurred at some institutions (such as African languages, Stanford)

29. Lots of Resources Consulted • Discographies of labels, musical styles • For musicals: American song : the complete musical theatre companion by Ken Bloom, c1996-c2001 (though we also had a considerable number of British musical theatre excerpts) • For opera arias: Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur aller Zeiten und Völker : als Nachschlagewerk und Studienquelle der Welt-Musikliteratur by Franz Pazdírek, [1904-1910?]

30. Eccentric names • Started a list of eccentric names • Hot Lips Page (1908-1954) • Red (Nichols and Norvo) • Pee Wee (Hunt, Russell and Tinney) • Scrappy • Lefty

31. Arias • Most translated aria

32. Most popular arias • Pagliacci. Vesti la giubba in Czech, German Russian, English, French • Carmen, several of the arias in several languages each

33. Best Sleuthing Story • Labels says: Arja Jako od wichru z op. Halka [by] Moniuszki • Actually is: Nie swatała mi cię swatka by Niewiadomski • Curator of collection sent copy of recording to associate in Poland • Others mainly typos for composer’s or work’s name

34. Inquiries from around the world • India • England (We Belong Together, Grey Gardens 2009 TV) • Spain • U.S. California, New York, other

35. Questions • Diane Napert, diane.napert@yale.edu • Kendall Crilly, kendall.crilly@yale.edu