^{Subcollection of Polish recordings from Opole Silesia
Ethnologisches Museum der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin Abteilung Musikethnologie, Medien-Technik und Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv Arnimallee 23-27 14195 Berlin
https://www.sammlungen.hu-berlin.de}

Recordings saved on Edison’s Phonograph Cylinders were made by a middle school teacher from Berlin, Paul Schmidt, in Śląsk Opolski in July 1913. According to the written documentation the collection included 40 wax cylinders, though only 32 exist to this day.

The repertoire includes Polish and Morawian folk songs and a regional instrumental music, as well as two prayers. Melodies are mainly triple-meter, dance melodies like folk walzes, walcerki. There is also a couple chodzony (a folk polonaise) melodies. Moreover, there are 23 acapella performances, and two accompanied by instruments. Apart from the songs about the folk provenience, we can also listen to melodeclamation of Ojcze Nasz (The Our Father) and Zdrowaś Mario (Hail Mary), A wczora z wieczora Christmas carol and an Easter antiphon Regina coeli laetere translated to Polish.

According to the details on the tapes’ boxes, the recordings were made in Polnisch-Rasselwitz (today’s Racławiczki), Sedschütz (where most of the recordings come from, today’s Dziedzice) and Pechhütte (today’s Smolarnia). Moreover, we know some of the performers’ names, i.a. Paulina Popiołek, Anna Pachotto, Andreas Rusch and two women’s surnames: Sacher and Lubczyk.

The recordings are being kept in the Berlin Phonogramm Archive, under the name Schmidt Schlesien 1913. They have been very well preserved, the quality of the technical documentation is very high, which was a rare thing during that time it was made. 

It is worth mentioning that the Musuem owns many other recordings of a great value to the history of polish enthnography, such as the recordings made by Łucjan Kamieński during the interwar period (which e.g. include Michał Kulawiak playing pipes). Those are perhaps the only remaining part of the Poznań Regional Phonographic Archive collection – Kamieński send a couple of recordings from Nowy Tomyśl to galvanize them in Berlin, before the war started. The recordings have been released by the Archive on an anniversary album, but they can also be found on a CD, which was attached to Jacek Jackowski’s publication Zachować Dawne Nagrania. Zarys historii dokumentacji fonograficznej i filmowej polskich tradycji muzycznych i tanecznych, cz. 1 (przełom XIX i XX w. – do drugiej wojny światowej). [Outline of history of phonographic and film documentation of polish musical and dance traditions part 1 (at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – until 2nd world war)]. Paul Schmidt’s Polish collection from the Ethnologisches Museum within the Polish folk music – phonographic heritage has been digitalized by Albrecht Wiedmann. The recordings have been  studied and described by Jacek Jackowski and Mariusz Pucia. Phonographic documentation has been restored by Anna Rutkowska. The recordings have been published as a Polish traditional music recorded by Paul Schmidt in 1913 with a phonograph in Opolian Silesia. The first recordings of an Opolian Silesia traditional music from the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv album, a part of The Oldest Sounds Documents of Polish Traditional Music series. It was one of the publications that got the Phonogramm Archive of the PAN Institute of Arts the first prize in 2017 Fonogram Źródeł (Phonogramm of Sources) contest, held by Polish Radio.