Thursday 29 January 2009

7. Two Old Armenian Songs

The following two songs were recorded in Armenia in 1909 by the London Gramophone Company, which had an office in neighbouring Tbilisi between 1901 and 1918 (responsible for the Caucasus and Central Asia).
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"alagyaz badzr sar e", "[Mt.] Alagyaz is a great mountain"

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and

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"en inch man er ark'ayakan", "What a kingly thing this is"

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Both these songs are to be found on an amazing CD compilation of old recordings entitled "Before the Revolution: A 1909 Recording Expedition in the Caucasus and Central Asia by the Gramophone Company", which is available on Amazon and on the other usual websites. Will Prentice of the British Library was the man responsible for compiling this CD, and he has written an excellent article on the activities of the London Gramophone Company in the Caucasus and in Central Asia in the 23rd edition of Playback, the bulletin of the British Library's National Sound Archive.
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1 comment:

  1. The singer's name in a clip iz Feyzoe Rizo, he is Kurdish. THe duduk player is probably Egite Gimo.

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