Hey, any excuse will do. Even a total lack of excuse sometimes, like now.
Posted on 01/31/2012 3:01:01 PM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
A 122-year-old recording of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, has been discovered in Thomas Edison's laboratory.
Bismarck's voice was captured by Adelbert Theodor Edward Wangemann, a German who was working as an assistant to Edison on a project to make phonographs marketable to the ordinary public.
The complete transcript has now been released for the first time since the recording in October 1889.
In the scratchy recitals on wax cylinder phonograph records the prince can be heard reciting the first strophes of the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudeamus igitur, as well as the beginning of the poem Als Kaiser Rotbart lobesam. More controversially, he also read the first lines of the Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
There is a similar recording from the same time with Johannes Brahms speaking in his high pitched, squeaky voice. But the amazing thing is that he is speaking in English on the recording.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis. He put together the modern German state, via three well-chosen, quick wars, then created a treaty system that kept the peace in Europe for over 40 years. |
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That’s the best one I’ve read in quite some time.
Old barfly I knew in Gafenwoehr.
One day, I decided to sit down and ask him his story.
Turns out he was Rommel’s CSM.
“There is a similar recording from the same time with Johannes Brahms speaking in his high pitched, squeaky voice.”
Brahms was specifically addressing and sending greetings to Thomas Edison on that recording. He then performed one of his Hungarian Dances on the piano where the piano sound is largely masked by the noise of the cylinder recording.
It’s interesting to hear some of the voices that were recorded in the 19th century by the Edison Company, such as Arthur Sullivan. Sullivan also addressed his remarks to Thomas Edison.
There are also the recordings made by the amateur enthusiast Julius Block where the voices of Tchaikovsky and Anton Rubinstein can be heard.
Now that the Bismarck cylinder has been discovered hopefully the recordings Edison made of Hans von Bulow performing at Carnegie Hall as pianist and conductor will eventually turn up as well.
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