Historical Sources of Turkish Music in Berlin: The Kurt Reinhard Collections in the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv

Abstract

In the focus of this paper are historical sources of Turkish music kept in institutions and archives in Berlin. They are, first and foremost, due to the work of Kurt Reinhard (1914–1979), professor at the Free University in Berlin (1948–1977) and director of the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv (1952–1968). From 1955 onwards, he intensively did fieldwork in Turkey, often together with his wife Ursula, and published and lectured on Turkish music. Today Reinhard’s sound recordings are preserved in the Phonogramm-Archiv in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, together with ample documentation, photos, writings, correspondence, and personal documents. Additional materials, including recordings and publications of his students and colleagues, preserved in the Institute for Comparative Musicology of the Free University, have also been given to the Phonogramm-Archiv. These historical documents form a unique collection of cultural heritage of Turkish music, which includes examples of music and dance from the late 1950’s through the end of the 20th century. In my article I shall briefly introduce the different Berlin institutions and provide information on the sound collections of Turkish music recorded in Turkey by Reinhard, his wife, his students, and colleagues from 1955 onwards.