”Ett fonogramarkiv för folkmusik”

– en idé som aldrig förverkligades

Abstract

Yngve Laurell (1882–1975) was a Swedish ethnographer and a pioneer in recording Swedish folk music with phonograph. This article contains mainly a description of Laurell’s work, before he went to China in 1921 for 26 years. During his absence the recordings became more or less forgotten, until they were “discovered” in beginning of the 1970’s. Already as a young student Yngve Laurell worked for shorter periods in the Ethnographic department of the National Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. He was sent to Berlin in 1909 – the purpose was to learn sound recording in the famous Phonogramm-archiv at the university. In 1910–1911 Laurell visited Australia, where he also could record some aboriginal music. Back home again he had no possibilities to the return to the museum, but started to make sound recordings on his own hand. He recorded some of the most outstanding Swedish folk musicians. Many recordings were made in Stockholm, often in his private apartment. Laurell got acquainted with the musicians in the open-air museum of Skansen, where they used to played. Laurell made his recordings without any institutional base. Now and then he got some financial support, but payed most costs from his own pocket. In 1914 a number of influental friends wrote an appeal, that demanded “a phonogramm-archive for folk music”. (The appeal was found by the author in the archive of the Nordiska museet.) The suggested archive should be built upon Laurell’s experiences and give him a payed position. However, the idea was never realized. At that time a nation-wide project of collecting written records was going on – under the direction of Nils Andersson (1864–1921). The aim of the project was to publish the records. As Nils Andersson had no interest in sounding records, the idea of a phonogramm-archive clashed with the existing plans. The article also discusses the change from written to sound recordings of folk music. The phonograph paradoxically both strengthened and weakened the position of the written record. With access to a “frozen” piece of music, the collectors could note all kinds of details. However, the written record then mirrored a single performance – not several performances, as written records did before. Variations between different performance – an essential quality – were lost. Many collectors used sound recordings in order to write more detailed notes. The written records were made not only to preserve music in archives and books, but to be used by other musicians. On the other hand collectors of non-western music immediately estimated sounding records as such. They did not have to convert their documents to regular notes, but could work scientifically with the recordings. Symptomatically, in Scandinavia several collectors of Lappish “jojks” used phonographs very early.