“The latest news: I’m working with the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva”

On 4 June 1963, Violeta Parra wrote a letter to her friend José María Palacios, presenter at Radio Chilena, with whom she had collaborated in Chile. In this letter, she tells him about her busy working schedule and projects in Europe, and notably mentions the MEG:

Latest news

I am currently working with the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva. Its archives will preserve two hours of recordings of Chilean folk singers and myself. Therefore, Don Emilio Lobos, Don Isaías Angulo, Don Alberto Cruz, and Don Gabriel Soto will be remembered for posterity as singers “a lo divino”. Doña María Painen Cotaro, Doña Adela Quinileo, and Don Juan Quilapan will be remembered as Araucanian singers. Doña Juanita San Martín, Doña Sabrina Cortés, Doña María Dolores Gutiérrez, and Doña [Revelia] Martínez as singers of cuecas and tonadas from the Ñuble Province. As well as the associations of La Tirana singers and dancers “Las Cuyacas de la Virgen” and “Morenos Indúes”. I myself will be performing on the 8 and 9 at the University Fair and on 21 June in a recital at the University of Lausanne. Moreover, in Paris, I am scheduled to record a documentary album for Barclay Records. […] That’s  all for now.

This letter is a valuable testimony for several reasons. Firstly, it details Violeta Parra’s artistic activity in Europe, notably the production of a major album with the Barclay label: Au Chili avec los Parra de Chillán (1963), recorded with the Parra family. The letter also reveals her deep and unwavering commitment to folk singers and the Chilean people, with a desire to promote and preserve their rich musical traditions. Above all, it provides key information about the origin and content of the four magnetic tapes from the Violeta Parra Collection now preserved at the MEG.

According to her Genevan friend Émile Hiltbrand, who at the time was a physics student but also took classes at the music conservatory, Violeta confided in him that she would like to “do something” with her magnetic tapes as she considered these to be veritable treasures. Hiltbrand spoke about the tapes to a professor at the conservatory, who suggested they contact the MEG, which already boasted a collection of sound recordings: the International Archive of Folk Music (Archives internationales de musique populaire, AIMP). At that time, Violeta enjoyed a certain renown in Geneva, and the press described her as a unique and “authentic” figure on the arts scene. This period was also prolific in terms of artistic activity: she was performing regularly in both Geneva and Paris, while also exhibiting her tapestries.

According to Claudio Venturelli’s account, Violeta and her friend Émile Hiltbrand arranged a meeting with someone at the MEG in June 1963. They came to the meeting  with several magnetic tapes.

It is worth noting that following the death in 1958 of Constantin Brăiloiu, who had founded the AIMP, the phonogram collections were “practically dormant” as several witnesses from the early 1960s noted. It was within this context that Violeta was received at the MEG by someone external to the institution, but more than likely invited for the occasion. This person was identified by Émile Hiltbrand as Zygmunt Estreicher, professor of musicology at the University of Geneva, a former collaborator of Jean Gabus at the Museum of Ethnography in Neuchâtel, and relatively close to the work carried out by Brăiloiu with the AIMP. Hiltbrand has recounted that Estreicher, a specialist in transcribing non-Western music, asked Violeta for a musicological and formal description of the content of her tapes, in terms she neither knew how nor wished to answer. Deeply offended and believing that the importance of her work had not been recognized, she decided to cut the meeting short and left.

A few days later, someone from the MEG contacted Violeta again, apologized, and asked her to return with her tapes. For this second visit, it appears that Violeta went to the museum alone. Although no written record of this meeting can be found in the MEG archives and given the neglected state of the AIMP at that time, it is probable that she was received by Marguerite Lobsiger-Dellenbach, the museum’s director from 1952 to 1967. Lobsiger-Dellenbach had worked closely with Constantin Brăiloiu on the AIMP, and following his death, archival documents show that she took over the majority of AIMP-related requests. Furthermore, her address book testifies to her numerous contacts with Latin American researchers, including those based in Chile, via the International Congress of Americanists (ICA).

It is therefore highly likely that Marguerite Lobsiger-Dellenbach was aware of the importance of Violeta’s work and received her at the MEG on 4 June 1963, on precisely the day Violeta wrote to José María Palacios to inform him that the voices of Chilean folk singers would remain in the MEG archives “for posterity”.

The magnetic tapes in the Violeta Parra Collection have original handwritten labels, featuring the following information: the name “Violetta [sic] Parra”, a number from 1 to 4, and the dates 4, 5, and 6 June 1963. The first two tapes are also marked “copy”, the fourth “recording”, and the third “copy and recording”. The inventory numbers of these tapes in the MEG AIMP database go from BD550 to BD553.

Violeta Parra collaborated with the MEG for three days on the editing and recording of these tapes. The content of the first two clearly clearly shows that the editing was based on pre-existing recordings. Pieces follow one another, separated by abrupt cuts. Violeta chose to not use the interviews between the pieces, keeping only the music. For some of these collections, the complete original versions (including the musical pieces and long interviews) are preserved in the collection of the Archivo Sonoro de Música Tradicional (ASMT, Traditional Music Sound Archive) at the University of Chile. Violeta had deposited them there before her arrival in Geneva at the end of 1962. For the MEG however, Violeta made an especially rigorous selection of songs copied onto magnetic tapes 1, 2, and 3, which will be discussed later.

A meticulous analysis of these recordings was done by sound engineer David Hadzis (United Music Foundation) on 18 December 2025. This evaluation shows that the recordings were most likely conducted using two tape recorders: one to play the original tapes, and the other to record the sound with a microphone. This would explain why listeners can occasionally hear sound overlays (BD550 and BD551), as well as voices that do not belong to the original recordings.

According to David Hadzis’ assessment, the first two tapes (BD550 and BD551), as well as the start of the third (BD552), are certainly copies. However, the second part of the third tape and the entirety of the fourth (BD553) are original recordings done by Violeta, more than likely at the museum. On these recordings, Violeta can be heard performing some of the songs she herself had collected, demonstrating different types of traditional peasant guitar tuning techniques, and various rhythmic patterns for playing tañido (percussion on the guitar soundboard) in cuecas. She may also be heard singing some of her own compositions. At one point on tape BD553, track 3, after presenting the traditional tuning style used in the province of Santiago, Violeta simply concludes in French: “Voilà!”, suggesting that the recording was made in the presence of a French speaker, again more than likely at the MEG.

Another element reinforces the hypothesis that the tapes housed at the MEG were edited on site. According to Violeta’s letter, it seems she did not own a tape recorder in Geneva at that time. When she was invited to perform at the Fête de l’Humanité in Paris in September 1963, three months after the tapes were deposited at the MEG, Violeta wrote to Gilbert Favre on 8 September:

I have the cheque here in my hand. 1,500. I won’t give a cent to the children because I fully intend to buy my tape recorder, my Kandelsquito. It is impossible for me to continue working on my music without it. […] So find out the exact price paid in cash, ça veut dire paid immediately. What do you think of Japanese devices? Are they better or equivalent to the Kandelski? (Parra, I., 1985: 108)

Violeta is undoubtedly referring to the Swiss brand Kudelski, then famous for its portable Nagra tape recorders. In any case, this letter may be said to confirm the hypothesis that Violeta’s tapes were edited at the MEG using museum equipment.

After three days of recording and editing work, it seems that Violeta left, taking the original magnetic tapes with her. These were probably retrieved after her death by her brother Nicanor, along with the rest of Violeta’s belongings that she had left in Geneva with her friend Edwin Engelberts.

The four magnetic tapes from June 1963 have remained in the MEG archives, and the only trace of any subsequent movement dates back to 2010, when Ángel Parra, Violeta’s son, who was then living in Paris, contacted Laurent Aubert, head of the ethnomusicology department at the MEG to obtain copies of the tapes Violeta had left. These were digitized and transferred to CD (MP3) and DVD (.wav) and copies were given to Ángel. The current whereabouts of these are unknown.

Conclusion

In 1965, after a period of intense artistic activity in Europe, punctuated by an exhibition of her tapestries at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, numerous exhibition-concerts in Geneva and Lausanne, the recording of three albums, and the publication of her book, Poésie populaire des Andes (Folk Poetry of the Andes), Violeta Parra returned to Chile. She settled in La Reina, east of Santiago, where she opened a carpa (tent) that served as an artistic and community centre. There, she cooked for everyone, as she had done in Geneva, and organized concerts and presentations of Chilean folk music. However, the distance of the venue from the city centre prevented the project from truly taking off and obtaining the desired success.

In 1966, she released her last album, Las últimas composiciones (Last Compositions). On 5 February 1967, Violeta Parra took her own life in the carpa at La Reina, leaving behind an immense artistic legacy and the feeling of having accomplished her “mission”, perhaps even more than she herself had initially imagined. 

Even today, Violeta Parra’s influence in Chile and throughout Latin America is undeniable. She continues to be an essential reference point for Chilean folk music on an international scale. In addition to her own work, both thanks to her and as she wished, and almost sixty years after her death, the voices of Emilio Lobos, Isaías Angulo, María Painen Cotaro, Adela Quiñileo, and many others have truly been passed down “for posterity”.