The Beginnings of Sound Recording of Folk Music in Ukraine

• Main Author: Irуna Dovhalіuk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KNUKiM Publishing Centre 2018-06-01
• Series: Вісник Київського національного університету культури і мистецтв. Серія: Музичне мистецтво
• Subjects: барон федір фон штейнгель; валентин мошков; фонографування народної музики; фонографічні валики; фонограмархів; городоцький краєзнавчий музей
• Online Access: http://musical-art.knukim.edu.ua/article/view/146228

The acceptance of the phonograph by the researchers of the Ukrainian folk music made an importants tepin the establishment and development of the professional musicalethnography. Thanksto Theodor von Steinheil (1870–1946), a socio-political and cultural activist, philanthropist, and diplomat, Ukrainians were among the top three nations in Europe to have taken advantage of the technical innovation. In July 1898, as part of work in the Horodok Regional Ethnography Museum (near Rivne), which he had created, the researcher used a phonograph cylinder to record a harvest song. Yet, in recent years, as a result of the latest research of the Ukrainian and foreign scientist, new data about the selfless work of the researcher in the field of music ethnography has become available, which has drawn other scientists’ attention to this topic. However, despite his momentous event in the history of ethnomusicology, the scientific feat of the baron was properly recognized only at the beginning of the ХХІ century in an article by Bogdan Lukaniuk. Nowadays, new data about the selfless work of the researcher in the field of musical ethnography has become available, stimulating interest in the topic. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to analyze the phonographic activity of Th. Von Steinheil and his museum associate V.Moshkov, adding to and verifying the data which had been published before. Having recorded his first several experimental phonographic audios, Th. von Steinheil did not stop at that. Already in autumn, he resumed his collecting work, and in addition too the pieces of music, recorded the repertoire of a lyrist. The baron in volveda folk loristanda military man V. Moshkov in the phonograph recording of folk music, who in 1898, recorded carol melodies for a Nativity drama, traditional Christmas felicitations, and some examples of Jewish folklore, hence establishing the beginning of the recording of Jewish tradition a musculature in Ukraine. Thanks to Th. Von Steinheilin four years, the phonograph recording of folk music became a separate field of research, whose culmination was the creation of the first archive of the phonograph cylinders in Ukraine and Europe. Nowadays, it is unknown what happened to the cylinders, neither is their whereabouts.