The very first venezuelan music recordings

Parishara dance near the Roraima tepuy (1917)

Source: Miradas alemanas hacia America Latina

Many years ago I started a quest to find the first venezuelan recordings... Books written by Napoleon Bravo, Edgardo Anzola and others mistakenly name Alfredo Sadel (1948) or Lorenzo Herrera (1926). The magic of internet allowed us to trace some recordings made by Theodor Koch-Grunberg when he explored the Amazonia several times between 1903 and 1913. Ethnolusicologist Max Brandt dates the venezuelan recordings around 1906. However these are indigenous chants, not really music - listen to a sample of Koch recordings:

 Teresa Carreño recording for the Duo-Art, New York, 1914

Source: Duo-Art pianola system

Then, in 1914, one of the greatest pianists of all times, Teresa Carreño recorded several classical pieces for the Duo-Art pianola system. Amazon.com has a CD with some of those recordings, available here. That same year, the very first popular venezuelan music was recorded in Trinidad. Funny, uh? La Orquesta Venezolana de "Chargo" recorded 9 instrumental compositions, all venezuelan waltzes:

Copai

Niña de Puerto España

La adriana

San José

Adiós Opato

Rey de los oros

El obsequio

Caracas alegre

La perla

These will not be the only venezuelan records made in Trinidad, many beautiful melodies will follow from Trinidadian composers. Why? There could be many answers, but it seems that venezuelan waltzes were very popular in the neighboring island. For more information, visit the Victor Encyclopedic Discography.
Until the next post, about the first recordings made in Venezuelan soil.

Music Hunter

I have decided to write this blog in English (some Spanish will show sometimes) because I think the collectors of around the world will find the information useful. There are a lot of other popular latin music blogs, all of them in Spanish. So I will make my best effort to gather links and information in English since it´s my intention to expand the reach of this long forgotten music.

I will start with an essential list of resources, where you can find a lot of interesting material and information:

- SALVAVINILOS: http://www.salvavinilos.org/
This is a project I would really like to be involved with, I personally own a fair amount of vinyl records, and spent money in preparing my PC to digitalize them... but a full time Marketing career and a family did not give me the time to do it. In Salvavinilos you will find an excellent collection of music from Venezuela, Latin America and some english classics too.

- FUNDACION INTERNACIONAL JOSE GUILLERMO CARRILO: A library of voices of the XX century - http://www.fundacionjoseguillermocarrillo.com
This is a little known and surprising site, they have biographies and music in mp3 format (low quality) but you will have access to some wonderful things, like Lorenzo Herrera´s records, Luis Alfonzo Larrain and other hard to find artists. You gotta have patience and browse the site because it has a LOT of information.

- I´ve been able to find very valuable music (valuable to me ;)) in several specialized forums, I will not list them because they are usually private and require registration. I recommend you to start googling what you are looking for, be methodic: if you don´t find anything try every month or every couple months... you never know when another collector decides to share what you are needing. It has worked for me, and I have made good friends in the way. Just be perseverant!

Good luck in your adventure!