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MUSIC SHORTS
News Briefs
January 30, 2001
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By Janos Gereben
Millions of Recordings Now Listed Online
The British Library's catalog of 2-1/2 million sound recordings is now available to the global Internet audience, complete with a killer search engine. Going online for the first time, the National Sound Archive (NSA) covers all kinds of recording: classical, jazz, world music, pop, oral history, and so on.
The NSA search engine allows browsing by name (record label, performer, composer), title (songs, albums, or radio programs), subject, or place. The NSA is one of the largest sound archives in the world. Opened in 1955 as the British Institute of Recorded Sound, it became a department of the British Library in 1983. See www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/cat.html. But do not misunderstand: What is now accessible online is the catalog, not the music. Too bad. Still, the information from this source is rich, instant, and invaluable. Looking for Britten, for example, easily yielded 6,030 references, but such Yanks as Michael Tilson Thomas and Kent Nagano also have a good run, with 558 and 210 mentions, respectively.
More good news on the Web Bell & Howell is digitizing all issues of the New York Times, going back to Vol. 1, No. 1, in 1851, putting it all online and providing searchable access. Going beyond the NSA online catalog news in the previous item, what's promised here is the availability of every issue, cover to cover, in full-page image format. Unlike the British Library catalog offering, this will cost you. But no detailed information is available yet. Still, just imagine doing research on a composer or performer and being able to read every review ever published on the subject in the Times! The electronic morgue will be released in 10-year segments over just 15 months, with releases beginning in March, eventually reaching some 3.5 million pages. Bell & Howell is on the verge of announcing other digitizing agreements, and the project will eventually include hundreds of newspapers around the world. A demonstration will soon be available for review at http://www.bellhowell.infolearning.com.
Grace notes Grace Cathedral will install its next organist-choirmaster on Thursday, February 1, at the 5:15 Evensong service. Christopher Putnam has been named Canon for Music and will oversee the church's musical liturgies and programs, which include two concert series. Putnam, originally from San Diego, has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, and he is a regular soloist at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor's Sunday afternoon concerts. Putnam is well familiar with the cathedral's 191-rank Aeolian-Skinner, having played it for several years at Grace's popular silent-film events, performing his own compositions and improvisations at the screenings. Fans have been spreading news of his "orchestral" performances, during which he'd weave in song-title quotes instantly when the subject was suggested by a scene on the screen.
Magnificat unearths nun's motets This weekend, in three locations, the early-music ensemble Magnificat will perform a 350-year-old "lost-and-found" score by a Benedictine nun, Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. The colorful motets, entitled Vespro della Beata Virgine, were written for an eight-part women's chorus, with organ, lute, and cello accompaniment. Cozzolani lived in the Milanese convent of St. Radegonda, located next to the Milan cathedral and known for its singers, who were forbidden contact with the outside world, except for when visitors from all over Europe would crowd into the convent for the convent's famed musical liturgies. University of Chicago professor Robert Kendrick will give a lecture before each concert. For information about the February 2 (Menlo Park), February 3 (Berkeley), and February 4 (San Francisco) concerts, call (415) 979-4500)
(Janos Gereben is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group and technology editor for www.the451.com.) ©2001 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |