Tchaikovsky’s Voice Captured on an Edison Cylinder (1890)

Take a quick trip back in time, to 1890. Here you can lis­ten to Pyotr Tchaikovsky (The Nut­crack­er, the 1812 Over­ture, etc.) and oth­er emi­nent musi­cians hav­ing some fun, record­ing their voic­es on a then new-fan­gled tech­nol­o­gy, the phono­graph cylin­der, invent­ed by Thomas Edi­son in 1877. To get a tran­script of what the friends had to say, you can read the tran­script after the jump. Thanks Mag­gie for this tip. (via Boing­Bo­ing)

A. Rubin­stein: What a won­der­ful thing [the phono­graph].
J. Block: Final­ly.
E. Lawrowska­ja: A disgusting…how he dares sly­ly to name me.
W. Safonov : (Sings a scale incor­rect­ly).
P. Tchaikovsky: This trill could be bet­ter.
E. Lawrowska­ja: (sings).
P. Tchaikovsky: Block is good, but Edi­son is even bet­ter.
E. Lawrowska­ja: (sings) A‑o, a‑o.
W. Safonow: (In Ger­man) Peter Jur­gen­son in Moskau.
P. Tchaikovsky: Who just spoke?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Voic­es from the 19th Cen­tu­ry: Ten­nyson, Glad­stone, Whit­man & Tchaikovsky