Composers Forum tapes, continued

We've completed transferring the information from the card file index of the Composers Forum tape reels to a spreadsheet. Using that sheet, we've now gone back to the shelf, and determined that there are several reels that still need indexing, starting from the 1970s, when the card file index was apparently abandoned.

So, our next step is to go through the physical reels on the shelf, and record any information that we can from the reels themselves. We spot-checked several reels a couple weeks ago, and some had folded programs contained in the reel boxes. We're hoping that this will be true for as many reels as possible, as otherwise we won't have more information than the date and composers names, which are generally on the outside of the box.

After this information is collected, we'll have as complete an electronic index as we can construct for now. Further information may be gathered at the point of digitization.

One interesting feature of these tapes which has emerged is that Virgil Thomson is said to have served as moderator for many of the composer discussions documented by these tapes. This adds an additional layer of historical interest to these reels, and contributes to a snapshot of the musical culture of that time.

Resource for "Gravesaner Blatter"

Kees Tazelaar has shared this great resource which documents the "Gravesaner Blatter", which I mentioned in an earlier post. He has provided both a listing of the articles from this periodical, as well as mp3 files of the content of most of the accompanying recordings. This very useful resource is at:

http://www.keestazelaar.com/gravesaner.html

Thanks for sharing this, Kees!

Migrating the card file index to the Composers Forum recordings

It's been a while since the last post, but, work has been happening. The latest work involves migrating a card file, which indexes some of the contents of the reel-to-reel tapes of the Composers Forum concerts, from the mid-1950s to the 1970s or so.

We've been inputting the data from the index cards into a spreadsheet. The card index is organized by composer, and it references numbers that are assigned to the tape reels. Thankfully, someone had the foresight to do this numbering!

Migrating the card file to an electronic listing will allow us to reconstruct, at least partially, the contents of individual tape reels. This is important because many if not most of the reels lack any contents notes (the reel pictured above is a lucky example), and are usually just labeled with composers' names and a date. The index cards provide information about titles, performers, movements, timings, venues, and technical details, although there is a wide range of how complete the information is.

Work is coming along nicely, and it seems reasonable to expect that we'll be able to make this available in electronic form by the end of spring 2009.