I’ve always been fascinated by the Great Exhibition (1851) and Victorian technology, so this amazing recording of Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” performed by 4000 voices in the Crystal Palace in 1888 takes my breath away just a little bit. This is the earliest known recorded music in existence, and although it is very scratchy and faint, you can imagine how astonishing this new technology was in 1888. It was recorded from 100 yards away by an Edison yellow paraffine cylinder in the Crystal Palace, which had been relocated in 1854 — after the Great Exhibition ended — from Hyde Park to Syndenham Hill (where it remained until it burned down in 1936).
The National Park Service have a fabulous collection of phonograph recordings, including some of the earliest recorded sound, here, including some of my favourites:
Big Ben, Westminster, striking half-past ten, quarter to eleven, and eleven o’clock, on July 16, 1890:
“The Phonograph’s Salutation” — William Gladstone:
This one is also interesting — one of the earliest known commercial advertisements, recorded by Len Spencer around 1906. It is another one of the Edison recordings from the NPS, available on Wikimedia.
And you can’t beat Tennyson’s gruff monotone:
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