Performing arts in the Netherlands


Ethnomusicological collections in the Netherlands

Compiled by Loekie van Proosdij
Version July 1995, as published in van Zanten, Wim and Marjolijn van Roon (eds), Oideion; The performing arts world-wide 2, pp 313-19 Leiden: Research School CNWS.

Contents:


ARNOLD ADRIAAN BAKE (1899-1963) to top
Research area: India and Nepal

The legacy of Dr. Arnold Bake, as far as his academic work and his personal documents are concerned, has been kept - since the death of Mrs. C.M. Bake - by Dr. P. Voor-hoeve. Not only was he related to the Bakes, through his wife, but he was also a fellowstudent of Bake’s in Leiden during the early nineteen twenties. Both studied Arabic and Sanskrit with the intention of joining the linguistic branch of the civil service in the former Netherlands East Indies. Contrary to Bake, who chose a different specialization and finished his studies in Utrecht, Dr. Voorhoeve went to Java, after obtaining his doctorate, where he was to be the successor of P. Gediking (librarian of the Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap). In the fifties Dr. Voorhoeve was appointed to a position with the KITLV (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal- en Volkenkunde) in The Hague, before the institute moved to Leiden.

The contents of the Bake archives have, as far as possible, been catalogued by Dr. Voorhoeve. Over the years, he has corresponded with numerous people about these archives, for instance with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy and Amy Ruth Catlin (Bake Restudy Project, 1984); Dr. E. ten Nijenhuis (Sang-gitadarpana); Francis Shepherd and Ineke Florijn (supplementary bibliography); and Carol Tingey (about Bake’s Nepalese fieldwork).

Dr. Voorhoeve was kind enough to allow us to reproduce a short index of the annotated catalogue he has made of the archives.

Summary of the contents of the Arnold Bake Archives.

  1. Documentation relating to the Sanggitadarpana edition.
  2. Lectures and radio talks (9 boxes; index by Nazir Jairazbhoy).
  3. Photographs: 2 series of 14 photo albums each containing 160 photos (plus descriptions), one series from Bake’s bequest and the other from the SOAS (School for Oriental and African Studies, London), filed by geographical area.
  4. Photographs from Bake’s letters to his relatives (duplicate series in London, with excerpts from the letters in English and copies of these in the Bake archives).
  5. Photographs: 6 Photo albums with photos from Nepal, filed and numbered by Carol Tingey. Documents, articles and lectures on Nepal. Correspondence with and publications by Carol Tingey. The Nepalese fieldwork of Dr. Arnold A. Bake: A preliminary catalogue of the visual material (photographs, trans-parencies and cinefilms) by Carol Tingey, 1988.
  6. 6 Videotapes, Bake Restudy Project, by Nazir Jairazbhoy and Amy Catlin.
  7. 2 taperecordings of lectures accompanied with singing.
  8. Letters from A.A. Bake and C. Bake-Timmers to their relatives in the Netherlands (1925-1942 and 1945-1962). 27 portfolios and index. Correspondence with Prof. J. Ph. Vogel (property of the Kern-Institute in Leiden).
  9. Personal notebooks (1952-1954 and 1957-1962). Diaries of C.M. Bake-Timmers.
  10. Manuscript, Masks and Faces, (unpublished work) plus photos from Nepal.
  11. Negatives: (glass) plates and (lantern) slides. Slides from Nepal 1939 and negatives with a description by Jean Jenkins. Negatives and photos from India, Java and Bali.
  12. Professional correspondence and documents.
  13. Programs and reviews. Documents SOAS.
  14. Documentation for (auto)biography, by Bake and by Mrs. Bake.
  15. Report of a tour through the U.S.A.
  16. Correspondence with and publications by Mrs. Frances Shepherd and Mrs. Ineke Florijn.
  17. Publications by A. A. Bake. In Memoriams. Bibliography (by J. Brough and by Ineke Florijn).
  18. Correspondence concerning the legacy of A. A. Bake. Annotated index to the Bake archives. Accounts book Bake archives.

Recently the Bake archives have been transferred to the Kern Institute in Leiden.
The address is:
Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuid- en Centraal Azië
Instituut Kern
Nonnensteeg 1-3
Postbus 9515
2300 RA Leiden


P(ETER) C. J. VAN HOBOKEN (1901-1994) to top
Research area: India

Long before he went to Paris (1931) - together with the dancer Indradev - to study Indian music and dance, Van Hoboken was deeply interested in Oriental philosophy and music. After leaving Paris in 1935, they both went to India to study some of the main styles of music and dancing on location. Back in the Netherlands (193-9), Van Hoboken was employed by the transcription department of the Wereldomroep (World Service), where he arranged music and prepared programs, for instance about Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi. He continued to give public performances, with which he had started already in Paris, in India and later in the Netherlands. For this purpose he also adapted Sanskrit texts for performance on the Dutch stage.

Van Hoboken visited India and Ceylon once more in 1967, taking material back home with him.

In the later years of his life his collection of books, old records and manuscripts has been gradually incorporated into the collection of Felix van Lamsweerde, who was kind enough to supply us with the details on the Van Hoboken collection that are reproduced below.

Van Hoboken collection (incorporated in the Van Lamsweerde collection)


FELIX P.M.C. VAN LAMSWEERDE (1934) to top
Research area: India

Following the advice of Jaap Kunst, Felix van Lamsweerde studied cultural anthropology as an introduction to ethnomusicology. He became a research assistant at the KIT (Royal Tropi-cal Institute) in 1956. In 1962 he did a specialized postdoctoral course in Indian music under Arnold Bake and Nazir Jairazbhoy at the School of Oriental and African Music in London, which was followed by two years of research in India. He studied the sitar with Vilyat Khan and Imrat Khan, made recordings of classical, folk and tribal music and collected musical instruments for the collection at the KIT, where he was appointed curator of the department of ethnomusicology in 1965.

Van Lamsweerde/Van Hoboken collection

  1. About 400 phonographic records (historic 78rpm records, partly from the thirties); 300 LP records and 500 tapes (of which about half are original recordings).
  2. 1500 slides and about 400 (black and white) photo negatives.
  3. Books: about 800 titles (60 percent on music and dance in India and the remainder on India subjects in general).
  4. Manuscripts, transcriptions, personal notebooks and documentation on performances and (radio)programs.

Address:
Felix van Lamsweerde
Koninginneduinweg 5
2061 AM Bloemendaal.


JAAP (JACOB) KUNST (1891 - 1960) to top
Research area: The Netherlands, Indonesia

Jaap Kunst expressed the desire to bequeathe his entire personal collection to the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT or Royal Tropical Institute) in Amsterdam as early as 1957. In 1963, due to unforeseen circumstances, this collection became the property of the University of Amsterdam. This part consisted of books and documents, films, photos and photo negatives, phonographic records and tapes and the correspondence. The collection of instruments and wax cylinders, with recordings made by Kunst in the former Dutch East Indies is still housed in the KIT.

The Jaap Kunst collection

  1. Books and professional journals (about 2500, according to sources from 1961 and 1966).
  2. Brochures and offprints.
  3. Photo archives: photos, (glass) slides, photo negatives (according to the same sources, about 3000 in total).
  4. Films: since 1992 seven cinefilms have been kept in the archives of the Stichting Film en Wetenschap (three of them on Terschelling, two on Flores, one has Athjeh/Nias as subject, and one was made during festivities in Djokjakarta in 1931).
  5. Phonographic records (about 800 - historic - 78rpm and LP records are catalogued), tapes and wax cylinders. These latter are the property of the Royal Tropical Institute and have been catalogued by Felix van Lamsweerde.
  6. 2 Albums with photographs.
  7. Manuscripts of Kunst’s publications.
  8. Itinerary (diaries).
  9. Correspondence 1919-1960. See Van Proosdij/van Roon, Jaap Kunst correspondence 1920-1940; An annotated index, Amsterdam 1992 (describing 1250 correspondents / 8400 letters). The cataloguing of the second part of the correspondence is in progress.

Addresses:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Letteren
(Dr. J. Louman, faculty-librarian)
P.C. Hoofthuis, kamer 463
Spuistraat 134
1012 VB Amsterdam

Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute)
Section ‘Ethnomusicology’
Mauritskade 63
1092 AD Amsterdam

Stichting Film en Wetenschap
Zeeburgerkade 8
1019 HA Amsterdam


PETER (PJ) ROZING (1913) [Father - S.V.D.] to top
Research area: Indonesia (Flores)

After completing his studies in philosophy and theology, Rozing was ordained priest in 1941 (by the Roman Catholic order Societas Verbi Domini). He took up a course in music theory at the conservatory of Tilburg after the Second World War. Later he assisted Jaap Kunst with the collection of the manuscripts and publications of Erich Moritz von Hornbostel to prepare an ‘Opera Omnia’ for publication. This work resulted in seven sets (typed out), each of which contains the assembled works of Von Hornbostel in three parts. (In the 1970s an official edition with an English translation was started as Hornbostel Opera Omnia, but this was discontinued after the publication of only one part in 1975). In 1946 he went to Ndora (Ngada) in Flores as a missionary, where he worked first in Nangaroro and from 1969 in Wudu (until 1984). During his stay there, he tried to incorporate traditional Florenese music into the Catholic religious service. He also collected flutes and jew’s harps, and made photographs and sound recordings.

The collection of Father Rozing has recently been donated to the Tropenmuseum, Koinklijk Instituut voor de Tropen in Amsterdam. Paula Bos is cataloguing this collection. The musical instruments will be compared to the instruments collected by Jaap Kunst, and those acquired by Paula Bos for the Tropenmuseum in 1994.

The Father Rozing S.V.D. collection

  1. Manuscripts: 6 published and about 10 unpublished papers.
  2. Sound recordings: about 300 musical examples, recorded for the most part in Flores.
  3. Musical instruments: 61 flutes from Flores, 4 from Timor and 4 from Java; 4 jew’s harps from Flores, 2 from Timor and 2 from Java.
  4. Photographs of musical instruments, musicians and dancers.

Address:
Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute)
Section ‘Ethnomusicology’
Mauritskade 63
1092 AD Amsterdam


WILL D. SCHEEPERS (1913 - 1990) to top
Research Area: The Netherlands

After being trained at the Conservatory of Amsterdam (piano), Will Scheepers was employed by the publication and information department at the KIT (Royal Tropical Institute). She also became Jaap Kunst’s co-worker, accompanying him on his lectures as a pianist, and together with him she attended several congresses on traditional music. In the 1950s she became secretary of the Dutch branch of the International Folk Music Council (IFMC). She wrote some popular articles on non-Western music, but of more importance is her collection of original Dutch (and other European) folk songs which she recorded and transcribed.

The Scheepers collection

  1. Sound recordings: 70 records (78 rpm); 30 original tapes with Dutch folk songs; 30 tapes with folk songs copied from recordings by others.
  2. Manuscripts: about 20 articles by Scheepers.
  3. Documentation on European folk music and folk dance (newspapers, journals etc.).

Address:
Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute)
Section ‘Ethnomusicology’
Mauritskade 63
1092 AD Amsterdam


WILLEM L. VAN WARMELO (1894-1976) to top
Research area: Europe, South Africa

Born in the former Netherlands East Indies, Willem van Warmelo started music lessons as soon as his family returned to the Netherlands. He was instructed by notable teachers and performed as a pianist and conductor. Van Warmelo was among the first to introduce the harpsichord and recorder and he became very interested in folk music, especially Andalusian folk-songs. In 1939 he was invited to come to South Africa, where he did research on vocal music. Among the "Kaapse Maleiers" (a group of about 100,000 people) he found a lively singing tradition. From 1956 on he recorded their songs. Van Warmelo was also a music teacher at the Battswood Training College, a school for coloured students. Due to the fact that the strict "apartheid" laws were colliding with his close contacts with the coloured population, he left South Africa in 1962. The publication of a book on the subject of the "Kaapse Maleiers" (Cape Muslims) was delayed by illness and remained unfinished. In BOA Perspectief (1982, 2, 1-3) part of his material was made into an article (‘Oude Nederlandse liederen bij de Kaapse Maleiers’).

Willem van Warmelo donated all of his research material and manuscripts to the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam.

The Warmelo collection

  1. 10 boxes of books (about Dutch folk songs, South Africa, and ethnomusicology in general).
  2. Manuscripts, articles, notebooks, diaries, musical transcriptions, lectures and texts of radio programmes.
  3. Several dozen records (78rpm), tapes and registrations of radio programmes ("Kaapse Maleiers").
  4. Photos and slides, partly without index.
  5. 2 Filing boxes (with index); files on tunes, references and quotations in alphabetical order.

Address:
Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute)
Section ‘Ethnomusicology’
Mauritskade 63
1092 AD Amsterdam