Throughout his career, Anthony Burgess used a variety of recording equipment to document both his personal and professional lives. From reel-to-reel tapes to cassettes, Burgess and his wife, Liana, used different technology to record readings, lectures, interviews, musical compositions, telephone conversations and even scenes from the Burgess family’s daily life. The archive at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation contains a vast collection of audio recordings, including over 700 cassette tapes, many of which have not been listened to for 50 years or more. To listen to these tapes, and preserve them so that they are accessible to future researchers and audiences, the Foundation sought expert advice from David Govier, audio preservation engineer and sound archivist at Manchester Central Library (pictured below).

David has been exploring ways in which to preserve and digitise the Burgess Foundation’s audio collection and in this episode of the podcast, Andrew Biswell talks to him about what he has found on the tapes, the equipment he has been using to listen to them, and some of the unexpected techniques required to deal with such an old collection of audio tapes. You will also be able to hear some samples from the tapes.

You can listen to the International Anthony Burgess Foundation podcast wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts, or you can stream below.

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