The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Gone With the Wind (Stereo Version) (2013)

The BnF's audio collection, with over a million audio documents, is one of the oldest and most important ones in the world. Born in 1911 as the Ar-chives de la parole (Archives of the spoken word), it was fortunate enough to be the recipient of donations from contemporary phonographic com-panies (Pathé, Odéon, Gramophone, Columbia...). In 1938, with the insti-tution of legal deposit for phonograms, these contributions became syste-matic; to this very day, they constitute the collection's main growth vector, forming a one-of-a-kind national heritage. This legal deposit is further complemented by donations and acquisitions.
Not only is the collection noteworthy for its sheer size, it is also remarkable because of the wealth of its contents: from classical music to songs, jazz, world music, and theatre, every audio document, every period, every mu-sical and spoken-word repertoires recorded and released between 1900 and 1962 (for the period in question) is represented here. From original re-cordings (a 1909 recording of Leon Tolstoy, etc.) and recordings which were seldom, if ever, reissued since their first release, the general public is offered a unique journey that follows the evolution of genres, styles, reper-toires, and interpretations.
The collection is a reflection and a remembrance of both the French and the international phonographic industry. Indeed, while its domestic com-ponent is considerable, its international dimension, a faithful representa-tion of the history of phonographs, is just as significant. Phonographic companies from Germany (Grammophon, Electrola...), Great Britain (His Master's Voice...), the United States (Victor, Brunswick...), and many others share the stage with their French counterparts (APGA, Pathé, Sala-bert, Vogue, Barclay...).
The collection is also noteworthy because of the technical quality of the audio documents that comprise it: whether legal deposit copies, received fresh off the presses, or donations, every item has been cared for under ex-ceptional preservation conditions.