The Judeo-Spanish Song c. 1900

Systematic ethnography on the Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) folksong and its publication started towards the end of the 19^th century. Diverse collectors, Jews and non-Jews, initiated these enterprises motivated by an array of diverse stimuli, such as national aspirations, imperial desires, redemption of past injustices, and the anxiety of forgetting. All these stimuli are characteristic of modernity in which folksongs occupy a different social space than in traditional society. Parallel to these ethnographic enterprises another modern factor entered the field of the Judeo-Spanish folksong collection and publication: the incipient recording industry. Few years ago, a hitherto unpublished and largely ignored repository of recordings of Judeo-Spanish folksongs resurfaced at the historical archives of EMI the major recording company in London. This new and rich resource opens new perspectives on the state of the Judeo-Spanish song as Sephardic Jews in the Balkans practiced and consumed it at the turn of the twentieth century. It not only illuminates the state of this repertoire at that time but also exposes biases of the ethnographic enterprises carried parallel to the beginnings of the recording industry. This presentation examines both aspects of the EMI Judeo-Spanish collection towards its imminent publication.