11 mei 2012: met trots en weemoed… het grootse afscheid van de Nederlandstalige Wereldomroep

Bovenstaande video toont de allerlaatste minuten van de Nederlandstalige uitzending van de Wereldomroep op vrijdagavond 11 mei 2012. Een buitengewone multimediale presentatie vormde de onontkoombare finale van een schitterende 24-uurs radiomarathon. In een sfeer van gepaste trots en weemoed kwamen nog één keer allerlei hoogtepunten voorbij uit de 65-jarige geschiedenis van Radio Nederland Wereldomroep. Aan de totstandkoming van deze laatste uitzendminuten leverde ik ook een flinke bijdrage middels het researchen, selecteren en aanleveren van alle audio-archieffragmenten die erin voorbijkomen.
Het was een afscheid zonder weerga, dat wereldwijd met veel medeleven werd gevolgd door trouwe, dankbare luisteraars. Het slottafereel voltrok zich in Hilversum in een dramatisch buitendecor, aan weerszijden van de vijver voor het Wereldomroepgebouw, letterlijk onder toeziende ogen van honderden medewerkers uit heden en verleden. Deze afsluiting van de Nederlandse uitzendingen vormt een mooie herinnering aan een wereldspeler in Hilversum die tientallen jaren van onschatbare betekenis is geweest voor talloze Nederlanders in het buitenland. Vaarwel Radio Nederland Wereldomroep.

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From the Hoboken Collection : Arnold Bake’s radiotalk (script) on Rabindranath Tagore


It’s certainly been too long – but better late, than never – since I announced to write on some of the interesting documents I found three years ago at Radio Netherlands from the legacy of Peter van Hoboken (1901-1994), Head of Transcription Service at Radio Netherlands from 1948 to 1966 and one of the great pioneers and promotors of Indian classical music in the Netherlands*. For several decades already there has been another and bigger Van Hoboken-collection that is incorporated in the Felix van Lamsweerde-collection, but most of the material that I came across at Radio Netherlands is different and therefore an interesting addition to the material that was known already.

Peter van Hoboken
Peter van Hoboken in his office at Radio Netherlands

From here I’d like to refer to these documents as the Radio Netherlands Hoboken Collection, abbreviated as RNHC. My find in January 2002 of a unique recording by Radio Netherlands in 1957 of sitarist Ravi Shankar already illustrated the great value of Peter van Hoboken, who organised this recording. As an adept of Indian classical music and dance Van Hoboken organised recordings of concerts in The Netherlands and he produced many Radio Netherlands programmes on Indian classical music.


At this point I want to proceed with some interesting documents I found among the RNHC, concerning radiotalks done in 1950 by world famous dutch ethnomusicologist Arnold Bake (1899-1963), radiotalks Bake did in english and hindi about the musical life and culture of India, recorded for the Radio Netherlands Transcription Service to be distributed to presumably India and Surinam for broadcasts by stations over there. What I found of these radiotalks is only paperwork, Bake’s typed scripts along with his handwritten corrections. Unfortunately, the recorded tapes can’t be found in the Radio Netherlands Audio Archives, as these were sent to stations outside Holland, the main task of the Transcription Service.


Arnold Bake

It’s a great pity the recordings of Bake can’t be found in the archives of Radio Netherlands. I’ve asked Felix van Lamsweerde and they’re not in his Van Hoboken Collection. I would assume that they could have been stored in the Arnold Bake Archives, kept at the University of Leiden, but Felix and another expert, Fred Gales, told me that the collection over there contains only papers of radiotalks and not recordings. So, if not in Hilversum and not in Leiden, where can they be? Did the Radio Netherlands Transcription Service sent them to All India Radio and/or to Surinam or are they kept somewhere at the University of London’s School of Oriental & African Studies where Bake lectured? At this point I can’t believe they’re lost. I hope they can be found somewhere, as I’d like to hear how the scripts I found in Hilversum come alive in a radio transmission with Bake’s voice and with the music he talks about.


Rabindranath Tagore

The radiotalk-script I like to present here contains Bake’s thougths on India’s world famous writer, poet, philosopher and Nobelprize winner Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941), in particular on ‘Tagore and his music’ and when I publish this it’s 7 May 2011, precisely the 150th birthday of Tagore. So, yes, this update on the RNHC took me too long, but I think I’m right on time with presenting these particular papers. 🙂


scriptpage 1, click a few times on the photo to enlarge


scriptpage 2, click a few times on the photo to enlarge


scriptpage 3, click a few times on the photo to enlarge


scriptpage 4, click a few times on the photo to enlarge

Let me add that I consider my short writings here on the RNHC as a work in progress. I don’t wanna pretend that I know all the details or have all the answers. That would be stupid and a false claim. If someone sees mistakes or things I overlook or has interesting additional information, please let me know.

* Radio Netherlands and Peter van Hoboken’s son Alexander have given me permission to publish these documents and write about them.

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Playing around India : A portrait of Dutch cellist Saskia Rao-De Haas (2002)

Playing around India – A portrait of Dutch cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas, a radio documentary by Pieter de Rooij, produced in 2002. [original Dutch title: Op streek in India – een portret van de Nederlandse celliste Saskia Rao-de Haas]

The documentary is mostly in dutch, but this video offers a transcript in english locked to the timetable, in order to make this production accessible for an international audience. To allow convenient reading of this transcript, you should play the video in HD (1080p).
Production date: May-June 2002. First broadcast by Concertzender on 8 November 2002, also broadcast by Radio Netherlands on 25 and 29 December 2002. Voice narrator: Wim Vriezen.
In the documentary ‘Playing around India’ (produced May-June 2002) programme maker Pieter de Rooij introduces the career of the brilliant 31-year-old (that is, in 2002) cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas. She is one of the very few people, and the only European, to play the classical ragas of North India on the cello. She is considered the only genuine cello soloist by the Indian concert going public. Her virtuosity and deep musicality have introduced a new resonance to Indian music and have been enthusiastically receieved by critics and audiences worldwide. To achieve a proper Indian sound Saskia Rao-de Haas plays on a specially modified cello: smaller (so as to be able to be played sitting on the floor), with five instead of the usual four strings, and with ten ‘sympathetic’ strings. These freely resonating strings give a beautiful Indian sound to the cello and the instrument has quickly become very popular.
For two years (speaking from 2002) Saskia Rao-de Haas has lived in New Delhi with her husband, the famous Indian sitar player Shubhendra Rao. As well as traditional raga improvisations, she and her husband play their own compositions in which they mix classical Indian music with elements from European folkmusic and Western classical music.
In May and June 2002 Saskia and Shubhendra toured outside India when, for the first time, Western audiences were able to hear the combination of sitar and cello in Indian classical music. Programme maker Pieter de Rooij caught up with the couple in Amsterdam where they gave a concert at the KIT Tropen Theatre on 25 May. Saskia talks about her music, her cello and her life in India. Her husband Shubhendra, the violin maker Eduard van Tongeren and her former teacher at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Joep Bor, all have something to say about Saskia’s amazing cello adventure. Recordings from the Amsterdam concert are heard during the documentary.

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Youtube-video on my find of Ravi Shankar recordings from 1957

Ravi ShankarMy latest Youtube-video is concerned with a sensational find I did of a recording of Ravi Shankar, made by Radio Netherlands in 1957. I did this find already in January 2002. It might be nice for viewers of my Youtube-channel who are interested in Indian classical music to learn about this interesting historical recording. For more details, see the ‘more info’-section attached to the Youtube-video .

Listen to the Radio Netherlands Historical Audio Archive on the web!


In my work as an archivist at Radio Netherlands I deal with all kinds of audio-material. Apart from a huge record and cd collection, other treasures of the archives are the many thousands of music recordings done by Radio Netherlands (mostly western classical music, but also other genres like jazz and world music) and many thousands of music programmes and all kinds of spoken word programmes. Some of the oldest material is on 78rpm-records, but the vast majority is on tape. All this material is being digitized, and now selections of it are published and can be listened to on the web.
 

 one of the Radio Netherlands Worldwide logo’s

Besides regular news the spoken word programmes are concerned with big national events, dutch society, literature, art, royalty, economy, religion etc., all produced and broadcasted since the birth of Radio Netherlands in 1947. Altogether the Audio Archives of Radio Netherlands provide a unique perspective on the world at large and on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of dutch society since 1947. Since we’re talking about World Radio here, not only in dutch, but also in english, spanish, portuguese, french, surinamese, bahasa indonesia, afrikaans and arabic. 

  

For Holland the Radio Netherlands Archives have always been a sort of ‘hidden treasure’, but recently things have changed. All material is being digitized now and selections are now retrievable/available via internet, thanks to my colleague Martien Sleutjes who’s keeping a weblog and adding material on a daily basis. Though it may concern only selections, among them are real treasures. So, if you’d like to find out how Radio Netherlands reported about the world and dutch society in the past 60 years in different languages, take a dive in the Radio Netherlands Archives and start listening. You’ll be surprised by what you’ll find there, and there’s coming up more all the time!


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Kala Ramnath receives prestigious ‘Kumar Gandharva Award’ in April 2008

Kala Ramnath in concert(Kala Ramnath in Concert / photo: Pieter de Rooij)

Violinist Kala Ramnath, who will be featured in my programme Gharana on the 29th of February, will be the next recipient of the ‘Kumar Gandharva Award’, India’s most prestigious national award for the best musician under forty-five years of age. Kala will receive the award on April 8th, 2008. Furthermore, Kala’s album ‘Kala’ -released in 2004- is chosen as one of the 50 Best Top of the World albums in world music magazine Songlines‘ March 2008-issue, its 50th ‘collector’s edition’. And last but not least, in the same issue Kala is also chosen as a member of ‘the Songlines 50 Allstars Orchestra’, a selection of the world’s greatest instrumentalists to form a world music super-group. Considering all these impressive facts, I guess world music lovers can’t really afford to skip a beat of my upcoming programme on Kala by the end of this month!

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