Upptøkur í hundrað ár: um innsavnan av siðbundnum tónleiki í Føroyum

The collection of Faroese folk culture including traditional music goes back to Jens Christian Svabo's first large-scale written works on Faroese matters in the late 18th century. In the latter half of the 19th century a growing interest in folk culture is seen in the Faroe Islands which can be traced back to German Romanticism and Johann Gottfried von Herder's concept of the "Volksgeist". Throughout the 19th century various efforts are done to preserve traditional music in written form. Towards the end of the 19th century a new technology arrives which changes the conditions for the collection and preservation of traditional music, namely the phonograph. In 1902 the Danish ethnomusicologist Hjalmar Thuren thus becomes the first to collect sound recordings via phonograph in the Faroe Islands. This article sheds light on some of the endeavours of Thuren, as well as the collection work of Håkon Grüner-Nielsen, Dr. Wilhelm Heinitz, Jógvan Waagstein, Karl Clausen and Marianne Clausen.