Collection overview
The Phonographic Collection of The Institute of Art is the oldest Sound Archive of Traditional Music in Poland. In 2001 the Archive comprised 130 000 folk songs and instrumental pieces from all over Poland (among them, 25% consisted of instrumental music), including borderlands and national minorities. Apart from folk music, there are also recordings of speeches, interviews about folk instruments, customs and musical notions of folk performers, all of them in dialects. Song-repertoire comprises short songs, ballads, military-songs, religious songs, small towns’ songs, children’s lore, lullabies, shepherds’ evocations etc. Most of the instrumental music consists of the dance melodies. The oldest recorded performers are singers born in 1854. The majority of the performers, however, are born in the second half of the 19th century.
Musicians, composers, musicologists and othe scientists, journalists, TV and radio reporters, teachers, philologists and students use the collection; the most important group among theme, however, being scientists. That is because our collection is of a source character.
The archive collection is systematically enlarged with documentary recordings. Some staff of the History of Music Department, working in the framewor of field research, record traditional performes, songs and instrumental music. The most important folk events (e.g. Folk Music festival in Kazimierz dolny etc.) are regularly registered by video phonic means. Presently, while conducting fieldwor we use DAT-recorder for music and Mini-disc recorder for interviews. All the record are disposited in the archive, where they are described and catalogued. That is why our archive still remain an open collection.1