Early HMV recordings at Calcutta, India

[dd_calcutta]

Greetings from India!

I am a new member here and a collector of old records, cylinders which showcased early Indian Artists. For playing cylinders, I have a Edison Fireside (Model A) with a lovely Cygnet horn and for 78 rpm records, I have a HMV and a good replica machine. As early as 1908, HMV established a record pressing plant in Calcutta, India. This plant took care of all recordings in Asia and produced fairly a large number of records.

Apart from this plant, there were a few others also. But before these, Frederick Gaisberg, assistant to Emile Berliner established a production company in Calcutta (around 1902) and produced recordings for large parts of Asia. Maybe you all are aware of these but as of date I am not able to find any of his Calcutta production records.

I am on the lookout for early recordings of Indian Artists (acoustic recordings during 1902 - 1920) both cylinders and 78 rpm shellac records. Any help in the right direction will be very much appreciated.

Warm regards!



DD

[CarlosV]

Welcome, DD!
You mention that the factory in Calcutta produced records for all of Asia. This explains the lot of records I bought of Chinese music, all Columbia brand, probably from the 30s, and all with a "made in India" written both on the label and on the sleeve. Unfortunately I cannot help you much on sourcing early Indian music: I have never found any early Indian music record for sale in Europe: I have a number of Indian pressings of US music from the 30s and 40s, all stemming from the Gramophone factory in Calcutta. There however is a store in Delhi called the New Gramophone House http://ngh.co.in/about-us.html that sells old 78 rpms, however their prices are quite steep. Worth a try if you are looking for specific items.

[dd_calcutta]

Welcome, DD!
You mention that the factory in Calcutta produced records for all of Asia. This explains the lot of records I bought of Chinese music, all Columbia brand, probably from the 30s, and all with a "made in India" written both on the label and on the sleeve. Unfortunately I cannot help you much on sourcing early Indian music: I have never found any early Indian music record for sale in Europe: I have a number of Indian pressings of US music from the 30s and 40s, all stemming from the Gramophone factory in Calcutta. There however is a store in Delhi called the New Gramophone House http://ngh.co.in/about-us.html that sells old 78 rpms, however their prices are quite steep. Worth a try if you are looking for specific items.

Thanks for the info Carlos. And yes, the prices are steep! Even those listed on eBay by India seller are quite high.

[Bruce]

Welcome DD

Unfortunately I to have not seen Indian music on 78s here in Vancouver Canada either. We do have a large Indian population here but I would expect that any item like that would be part of a family heritage and kept.
I will keep an eye out for you though.

I have restored a Swiss machine made for sale in Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon and Delhi. I would like to display the machine with an appropriate 10 or 12 inch record and a needle tin.
The music on the record is not the primary factor so it does not have to be Hindi or Chinese.

The importer was the Viel-o-phone Co., so any record with the label ``Viel-o-phone`` or manufactured by the Viel-o-phone company of Bombay would be great.

If you have a record like this for sale or know of where I can find one it would be greatly appreciated.

Bruce

[epigramophone]

This is the only 78rpm record of Indian music in my collection. I know nothing about the singer or the manufacturer, but the record is clearly later than your preferred pre-1920 date :

[Starkton]

Frederick Gaisberg, assistant to Emile Berliner established a production company in Calcutta (around 1902)

Fred Gaisberg was responsible for making a number of Indian recordings in mid-November 1902, but neither established a production company in Calcutta nor did he assist Berliner after he left the US in 1898.

Here is a 7" from my collection, one of the very first Indian discs, taken c. 17 November 1902. It is an excerpt from the opera "Inder Sabha", regarded as the first complete Urdu stage play ever written. On that day, Gaisberg recorded 15 pieces from "Inder Sabha", both on 7" and 10" discs.

I found an interesting article about the first Indian voice to be recorded on disc: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifest ... -recorded/

[dd_calcutta]

Welcome DD

Unfortunately I to have not seen Indian music on 78s here in Vancouver Canada either. We do have a large Indian population here but I would expect that any item like that would be part of a family heritage and kept.
I will keep an eye out for you though.

I have restored a Swiss machine made for sale in Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon and Delhi. I would like to display the machine with an appropriate 10 or 12 inch record and a needle tin.
The music on the record is not the primary factor so it does not have to be Hindi or Chinese.

The importer was the Viel-o-phone Co., so any record with the label ``Viel-o-phone`` or manufactured by the Viel-o-phone company of Bombay would be great.

If you have a record like this for sale or know of where I can find one it would be greatly appreciated.

Bruce

Dear Bruce,

I will sure look into this and try to find one for you.

Right now there is one listed on eBay : http://www.ebay.com/itm/WHITLOCK-ORCH-X ... 1642029194 but the price is absurd!

Regards.

[dd_calcutta]

This is the only 78rpm record of Indian music in my collection. I know nothing about the singer or the manufacturer, but the record is clearly later than your preferred pre-1920 date :

Great to see an Indian record in your collection ! If you have more just send me offer on PM.

Regards.

[dd_calcutta]

Frederick Gaisberg, assistant to Emile Berliner established a production company in Calcutta (around 1902)

Here is a 7" from my collection, one of the very first Indian discs, taken c. 17 November 1902. It is an excerpt from the opera "Inder Sabha", regarded as the first complete Urdu stage play ever written. On that day, Gaisberg recorded 15 pieces from "Inder Sabha", both on 7" and 10" discs.

Nice one indeed! Great to see such old pieces

Regards.

[dd_calcutta]

Hi All,

I will try and summarise the information I could gather so far on early Indian recordings. All from various books, articles and research papers.

The first ever Indian voice was recorded in London in 1899. These were 7" diameter records with recording on one side only. These 44 records were by Captain Bholanath, Dr Harnaam Das and Ahmed who sang or recited in various languages.

Professor H Bose, a businessman of Calcutta, entered into the new business of cylinder records under the banner of ‘H Bose Records’ and later ‘Pathé-H Bose Records’. His catalogue of 1906, lists number of cylinder recordings of Rabindranath Tagore. Most of these have been lost to history except the Bande Mataram sung by Rabindranath Tagore. Cylinder records were in market until 1906-10, even at the same time as the single and double side flat discs of the Gramophone and Nicole companies. Although there is no systematic catalogue found so far, it is believed that several hundreds of cylinders were recorded both privately and commercially. Nothing can be found so far except a few broken pieces.

And like Starkton says, Frederick William Gaisberg reahced Calcutta and did the first recordings on 2nd November 1902. Overall he did about 500 recordings with artists like Sashimukhi , Gauhar Jaan, Mrinalini Dasi, Angur Bala Devi, Indubala Devi, Janki Bai, Malka Jan, Peara Saheb etc I believe most of these are one sided shellac records.


Posting this with a hope that some of you might find a record or two in your precious collections and share here.

Regards.