10000 wax cylinders online

The University of California (Santa Barbara) is in the process of digitizing its collection of wax cylinders dating from the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. 10,000 done and 2,000 to come. The limitations of technology then mean that individual recordings are fairly short, so there's no way you'll get  symphonic works, far less full operas. But there are interesting snippets like a few minutes of Ah manon mi tradace from 1901, and Angel's Serenade by Caetano Braga recorded by the Edison Symphony Orchestra, created in order to make recordings for Thomas A Edison. I don't know if they did regular concert work. Hence the preponderance of popular music and ethnographic collections, some made in the field. Edison himself travelled all round the world, recording sounds and making moving pictures. The ethnographic recordings are particularly interesting since they capture a world that no longer exists: Tahitian and Native American performers, for example, and the sounds of Europe and America from times past.

Some of these recordings have been digitized before, but it's still fun to listen in on a world that's long gone, and hear the voices of the dead (literally) announce with great excitement the name of the recording organization. There isn't much in the way of "music" in these performances, but that's hardly the issue. The very novelty of being able to reproduce sound through a machine was a thrill.

Fonógrafo - a poem about recording technology

A poem about the latest technology - phonographs! The poet is Camilo Pessanha ( 1867-1926) who left Portugal for Macau in 1894.  So chances are, he listened to phonographs, which reached the China coast almost as soon as they became commercially available in Europe. Pessanha went to Macau because he was  fascinated by the exotic mysteries of alien cultures. In Macau, he lived as a Chinese, learning the language, collecting art and even becoming addicted to opium. His art collection isn't that great and his poetry in Chinese not nearly as good as his poetry in Portuguese, but at least he tried, like quite a few intellectuals in his time. So perhaps it's no surprise that he was fascinatedd by the possibilities of sound reproduction.

Imagine someone hearing sound technologiy for the first time, pondering on what it might mean. Pessanha describes the voice of a comedy actor, declaiming to an audience. But the actor is long since dead, and the original audience too. The odour of the crypt, and of dust, enters the air. Change the record! Now a barcarolle, suggesting lilies floating on the water, and sensual dreams evoked by the "extática corola". The record changes again. Now, the sound of a golden bugle (clarim) suggesting daffodils greeting the dawn. Then, silence. The poet thinks of Spring, morning and the scent of violets.

I'm not sure if the poem was written in Macau, since Pessanha did return to Europe for short periods, although he made his home in Macau and is buried there with his son, with whom he scrapped.  (Just now, a kind friend said the poem was written in Macau in 1920.)  But the poem is nostalgic, connecting the phonograph's ability to preserve ephemeral moments in the past and make them seem fresh again.  Definitely a poem we should think about, now that we take recording for granted. The photo shows Pessanha in a garden in Macau with another poet, Wenceslau Morales, who went to live in Japan and studied Japanese. Pessanha is the one reclining on the deckchair, looking doped up. Those pots in the background would be Qing antiques now, and the furniture. But thanks to photography (Chinese studio) the poets, the dog, and the plants are preserved forever.


Vai declamando um cômico defunto. Uma plateia ri, perdidamente,
 Do bom jarreta... E há um odor no ambiente.  A cripta e a pó, - do anacrônico assunto. 

Muda o registo, eis uma barcarola: Lírios, lírios, águas do rio, a lua... Ante o Seu corpo o sonho meu flutua Sobre um paul, - extática corola. 

 Muda outra vez: gorjeios, estribilhos Dum clarim de oiro - o cheiro de junquilhos, Vívido e agro! - tocando a alvorada... 

Cessou. E, amorosa, a alma das cornetas Quebrou-se agora orvalhada e velada. Primavera. Manhã. Que eflúvio de violetas!

MILESTONE NEW SET Mahler recordings 1903-40

At last, probably the definitve set of recordings of the music of Gustav Mahler from issued 78's between 1903 and 1940. Although some of these recordings have been known for some time, this new 8 CD set from Urlicht Audio-Visual is a collectors item because it's so beautifully put together. 

This is the most comprehensive collection ever assembled, including every recording listed in Peter Fulop's Mahler Discograhy. The booklet, with notes by Sybille Werner and Gene Gaudette, is a work of scholarship. It evolved from Werner's research with Henry-Louis de La Grange into the reception of Mahler's music in this period, which proved that the composer's music was heard more often than previously assumed. 

Werner and Gaudette's notes for this set contain the most comprehensive description of the world of recording in this era, and the people involved. They explain the odd sound balance on the first acoustic recording, Ein Mädchen verloren (from Die Drei Pintos) by Leopold Demuth in 1903: the baritone has to shout into the horn of the recording machine. This sort of insight informs the way we listen to performance practice. Read her analysis of Oskar Fried's portamento and "surprisingly steady tempo" in his pioneer recording of Mahler's Symphony no 2 in 1924, one of the first full orchestra recordings made possible by new electrical technology. This was one of the last major acoustic recordings made by Polydor. Had they only waited about a year!  Fried knew Mahler personally, as did Willem Mengelberg,  whose 1926 Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony no 5 is included, but it would be wrong to deduce how Mahler himself might have conducted. This is also an opportunity to compare Mengelberg's Adagietto with Bruno Walter's, made in Vienna in January 1938.

Some of these recordings are well known, such as Jascha Horenstein's 1928 Kindertotenlieder with Heinrich Rehkemper, which Benjamin Britten played incessantly. But Mahler enthusiasts will treasure this new set because the transfers are new, and made by the best people in the business, Ward Marston and Mark Obert-Thorn. You can hear the difference. Surface noise is reduced and the music shines more clearly. Hidemaro Konoye's pioneer recording of Mahler's Symphony no 4,  plagued by poor sound quality, now shows why Konoye was involved with Franz Schreker, Richard Strauss, Fürtwangler and Erich Kleiber. Marston and Obert-Thorn used originals in their own collections and also from a number of extremely scarce discs that were lent from the collections of Raymond J Edwards Jr, Nathan Brown and Charles Niss. The transfer of Mahler's Symphony no 1 ((Mitropoulos, Minnesota Symphony Orchestra), was provided by Charles Martin. 

Great classics like Bruno Walter's Das Lied von der Erde (Kerstin Thorberg, Charles Kullmann) are on this set, in cleaner sound, but also relative rarities like  a 1928 potpourri of Das Lied von der Erde (Dol Dauber Salonorchester, Wien), and Um Mitternacht transcribed for voice and organ, recorded in Central Hall, Westminster, London, in the same year. These ventures may suggest that attitudes to music were different to today. That's why we need to know the archaeology of musical performance. There are no rigid rules. Styles change, just like accents in speech change. These recordings were made when Mahler was "new music". But all good performance approaches the score in an original way and makes the music feel new. 

This Urlicht Audio Visual set, Gustav Mahler issued 78's 1903-1940 is a milestone, an essential reference work for anyone interested in Mahler and in perfomance history. The transfers superede earlier versions, and Sybille Werner's notes are unique. Click on the link at thes beginning of this paragraph to purchase. The set has been compiled not by anonymous mega business, but real Mahler enthusiasts who care passionately about what they are doing. They deserve our support.