Middle Eastern music on shellac disc
Number of items in collection: 74
Short description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
The British Library’s Middle Eastern music collection includes around 2000 78 rpm shellac discs from the period 1930s to 1960s.
Long description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
The British Library’s Middle Eastern music collection includes around 2000 78 rpm shellac discs from the period 1930s to 1960s. The vast majority of these are from the labels Gramophone/HMV (UK), Columbia (USA), Baidaphon (Lebanon), Cairophon (Egypt), Odeon (Germany), Chakmakchiphon (Iraq), Parlophon (Germany) and Philips (Netherlands).
Many discs were recorded by the agents of the recording companies in the fast-developing urban areas of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait. Thus these recordings mainly represent a (then) new urban culture, which was important in nation-building, cultural exchange and in crossing of social and tribal borders. Rural musical genres were recorded to a much lesser degree.
Specialities in these collections are the early sowt (urban music of the Arabian Peninsula) musical recordings and an expansive Iraqi music collection including rural and urban genres. There are, for instance, recordings made in the 1930s from such well-known musicians as Mulla Seoud al Koweity (1900-1971, Kuwait), Salim Rashid Suri (1910-1979, Oman), Mohamed El Fares (1895-1947/1948, Bahrain) and Dahi Bin Walid (1896/1898-1941/1951, Bahrain).
Recordings from this part of our collection will be added to this space as they are digitised and processed during the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership programmeSoundcloud