SOUND RECORDED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19844, 19 May 1927, Page 2

SOUND RECORDED

MUSEUM OF VOICES A VALUABLE COLLECTION. The new catalogue of a well-known British firm of gramophone record makers throws a vivid 1 light on English musical life during the first generation of gramophone history (says London “Public Opinion”). Among the thousands of records listed are some of such recent date that they record Christmas carol singing in Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal, and there are others again which give an encore to songs actually sung during the early days of the century. There is the echo of Patti singing “The Last Rose of Summer.” '“Home, Sweet Home,” and other olr> time melodies with which slie delighted our parents in the ’seventies and ’eighties. The voice of Caruso, recorded in his prime, is preserved in about 50 items.

In this strange museum of sound-re-production are many famous actors of the past—Sir Beerbohm Tree, again mesmerising Trilby; Lewis Waller, as Henry V. at Harfleur; Maurice Farkoa, and others. The humour of Dan Leno is also “caught,” and a listener in 1927 can understand why 1897 laughed.

One example is that funny little sketch where Dan went to visit a hunting friend. The humour may be a trifle old-fashioned, but it is precious historically: “I met him at the station, and he said, ‘Halloa, old fellow, you’re just in time for the meet.’ So I looked at him, and I said, ■‘Meat!’ I said, ‘AVhat, have you opened a butcher’s shop!’ He says, ‘Butcher’s? No!’ he says, ‘You’re all right; go up to the house and have some hunt breakfast.’ So I thought, ‘Of course. There we are! The meat’s up at the house with the breakfast, and very likely he’s had a meat tea and made a breakfast of it. ’ ”

Greig and Saint-Saens can be heard playing their compositions on the piano; Sir Ernest Skackleton tells of his dash to the South Pole; Lord Roberts talks (in 1913) of “National Service,” and Wopdrow Wilson delivers a speech on “Democratic Principles.”

From the point of view of reproduction the old historical records may not be comparable with those made by the new electrical method of recording, but they are very wonderful and of absorbing interest—and we are left wishing that the invention had been put forward three centuries ago to give us “first nights” of Elizabethan drama.