Mu~ic in education
defend and propagate it, to make it better understood and therefore
better appreciated, is to promote the brotherhood of man, by forging
new links through the universal language which music represents; it
is also a way of removing, on the artistic plane, the antagonisms which
sometimes divide men in other fields.
If, as a result of judicious organization (or reorganization), the
conservatory libraries in the various countries could make a modest
contribution to this end, they would have deserved well of hu-
manity.
[Translated from the French J
SOUND LIBRARIES ANDTHEIR ROLE IN MUSIC EDUCATION
by
Roger D~VIGNE, Director, Phonothkque Nationale, Pans, FranceSound libraries, that is, libraries of sound recordings, can and must
play an increasing part in world culture. Whereas ordinary music
libraries can furnish only the score used for a performance, the sound
recording, preserved in a sound library, gives not merely the score but
the actual performance.
People in all countries are, of course, aware-if only through the
radio-of the part played by gramophone records and sound record-
ings in providing amusement or relaxation. But from the scientific,
cultural and human standpoints, the role of sound recordings is still
inadequate and sporadic.
The sound libraries can enrich culture by a method and technique
of their own. The first scheme for a State sound library was advanced
in Europe on 27 April 1899, in the days of cylinder recordings, at the
Vienna Academy of Sciences, which adopted it. The year 1904 saw the
foundation of the Phonogramm-Archiv in Berlin and in 1911 the Sor-