Tuesday, July 10, 2007

a listener's guide to Ezra Pound

PENNsound's Pound archive is truly remarkable. This blog has already thus testified, per poet Peter Gizzi. The earliest recording that survives--The Harvard Vocarium reading in Cambridge--was made in 1939. The latest are some miscellaneous recordings made in San Ambrogio and Venice, between 1962 and 1972, by Olga Rudge. Richard Sieburth did the lion's share of the work in assembling and comprehending the Pound recordings. Even he--an expert on the topic--discovered some new things along the way. For PENNsound Richard wrote a "listener's guide" titled "The Work of Voice in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". On May 22, 2007, I recorded a discussion with Richard about all this. You can hear it here.