The Hans Kramer Collection at the National Library, Cape Town: an archival perspective on Jewish patronage of music in 20th-century South Africa

Abstract

Hans Kramer (1911–2002) was important for two reasons: he owned the Home of Music, a unique music store in Cape Town, and he founded the Cape Town Concert Club, which hosted regular concerts by international artists. Rather than constructing a biographical narrative, the present article focuses on the contents of the Hans Kramer Collection at the National Library in Cape Town with the aim of uncovering and considering the importance of certain Jewish individuals’ contributions to music patronage in South Africa during the second half of the 20th century. Keeping music at the centre of the investigation, the archive allows a window into Jewish relational nexuses with different local communities and institutions, on the one hand, and international artists and organisations, on the other.