This week's selection was prepared by Dr Graeme Counsel, the archivist for the Syliphone record label digitisation project funded by the Endangered Archives Programme.

Kébendo Jazz were one of Guinea’s greatest orchestras, super-stars when many groups, such as Bembeya Jazz, were still in their infancy. Adapted from an ancient Mandé song, this recording from circa 1971 is an alternate version to that which appears on Syliphone SLP 25. The song celebrates Guinea’s grande artistes, with a reminder to “do what you have to do and do not worry about the hour of your death”.

Soumba performed by Kébendo Jazz

This example is part of a large collection of Syliphone record label recordings from the Radio Télévision Guinée archives, created in the Republic of Guinea under the Presidency of Sékou Touré (1958-1984) following independence from France. The collection was digitised as part of the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) project whose work contributes to the preservation of archival material that is in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration world-wide.

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This week's selection comes from Liz Wright, National Life Stories Project Interviewer.

Rod Kelly is a silversmith who specialises in the technique of chasing to create low relief decoration on the surface of silver vessels, which he often raises (hammers from sheet metal) himself. Rod depicts images from nature with a fluidity of line that seems effortless, but the process of decorating a three-dimensional object, based on a two-dimensional design, can be painstaking. In this clip, he describes the nerve-wracking process of composing a design on a silver form.

Rod Kelly_the nerve-wracking art of silversmithing

Silver vase, Philippe Wolfers c.1895 (Rijksmuseum) 

Visit Crafts on British Library Sounds to hear more from British artisans working with studio crafts such as pottery, metalwork, jewellery  and book arts.

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This week's selection comes from Kevin Lemonnier, Preservation Audio Engineer.

This is the only known recording in existence of Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro Op. 47. The performance took place during the 1937 London Music Festival and was privately recorded off broadcast, onto a lacquer disc, by audio engineer Kenneth H. Leech (1892-1995).

Toscanini conducting Elgar's Introduction and Allegro Op. 47

 Portrait of the composer Arturo Toscanini c.1926 (J. Paul Getty Museum)

The audio quality is rather poor due to wear and shrinkage of the cellulose nitrate but it still reveals a driving performance from the Italian master. 

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This week's selection comes from Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds.

Sparkie Williams was a prize-winning talking budgerigar, renowned for his impressive vocabulary of over 500 words, sayings and rhymes. In 1958 he was crowned top bird in the BBC's International Cage Word Contest which turned him into an overnight star. His success led him to be the face (or should that be beak?) of an ad campaign for leading bird seed producer Capern and so impressed Parlophone that they offered him a record deal.

His owner, Mrs Mattie Williams, employed an almost military approach to Sparkie's oral development, dedicating several hours a day to teaching her beloved budgie to speak. Her Geordie accent can clearly be heard in Sparkie's delivery of the rhyme at the end of this recording.

Excerpts from Philip Marsden introduces Sparkie Williams_Parlophone 1958

Sparkie Williams (courtesy of the Great North Museum: Hanock)

After his death in 1962, Sparkie was stuffed and donated to the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle where he is currently on display.

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This week's selection comes from Dr Eva del Rey, Curator of Drama and Literature Recordings and Digital Performance.

In this recording, made in 1991 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, British literary theorist Terry Eagleton discusses the intricacies of the concept of ideology with French sociologist, anthropologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002).

Bourdieu explains his concept of symbolic violence, by which he means the systems of meaning that legitimize and thus solidify structures of inequality, often in a way that is undetectable and invisible to its very victims. 

Pierre Bourdieu and Terry Eagleton in conversation

Fight with Cudgels (c.1820-1823), Francisco de Goya. Wikimedia Commons.

This recording is an accessible introduction to one of the most influential social thinkers of the last three decades of the twentieth century, and also one of the very few available online featuring Pierre Bourdieu explaining his work in the English language.

Over 800 recordings of talks and discussions held at the ICA between 1982-1993 can be explored on British Library Sounds. 

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