and here is NYT story on the findings
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/science/bismarcks-voice-among-restored-edison-recordings.html
On Jan 30, 2012, at 10:03 PM, DanKj wrote:
>
> - Original Message - From:
> To:
> Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 8:20 PM
> Subject: [phonolist] Early European Edison Phonograph Recordings Released
>
>
>>
>> Thomas Edison NHP News Release
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> For Release: Monday January 30, 2012
>> Contact: Jerry Fabris
>> Phone: 973-736-0550 x48
>>
>>Early European Edison Phonograph Recordings Released
>>
>> WEST ORANGE, NJ – Today the National Park Service announces the first-time
>> release of 12
>>
>> historic sound recordings made by Thomas Edison’s recording engineer Theo
>> Wangemann on
>>
>> wax cylinders during 1889-1890 in Germany, Austria, Prussia, and France.
>> The recordings
>>
>> include the voices of eminent German historical figures Otto von Bismarck
>> and Helmuth
>>
>> von Moltke, and several performances by important musicians of the period.
>> The sounds
>>
>> are available on-line in MP3-format at:
>>
>> http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/theo-wangemann-1889-1890-european-recordings.ht
>>
>> m.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:00 noon, historian Patrick Feaster,
>> will present a
>>
>> one-hour program about the recordings, titled Theo Wangemann: The Man Who
>> Made the
>>
>> Phonograph Musical. This presentation will explore the life and career of
>> Theo
>>
>> Wangemann, who was arguably the world’s first professional recording
>> engineer. Also at
>>
>> the program, collector Stuart H. Miller, M.D. will exhibit the phonograph
>> used by
>>
>> Wangemann in Europe during 1889-1890. The program will be held in the
>> Laboratory Complex
>>
>> at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, 211 Main Street. The entrance
>> fee to the park
>>
>> is $7.00, children under 16 are free. Seating is limited and reservations
>> are required.
>>
>> Reservations can be made by calling 973-736-0550, ext. 89.
>>
>>
>> Museum Curators first cataloged the damaged wooden box containing the wax
>> cylinders in
>> 1957, found in the library of the Edison Laboratory. In 2005, the National
>> Park Service
>> completed a multi-year project to individually catalog every historic sound
>> recording in
>> the museum collection. Curators noted that the box contained 17 brown wax
>> cylinders in
>> fair and poor condition, several broken with large pieces missing. No
>> title list or
>> other identification survived in the box with the recordings, so the
>> recordings could
>> not be identified until they were heard. In 2011, the park's Curator of
>> Sound
>> Recordings digitized 12 of Wangemann's 17 cylinders using a French-made
>> Archeophone
>> cylinder playback machine, saving the audio as Broadcast Wave Format files.
>> (Five of the
>> cylinders could not be digitized due to their condition.) Once the audio
>> could be
>> heard, historians Stephan Puille and Patrick Feaster identified the sounds
>> and wrote two
>> scholarly essays, which are included with the recordings on the Thomas
>> Edison National
>> Historical Park website.
>>
>> Entrusted by Thomas Edison with the task of applying the newly developed
>> wax cylinder
>> phonograph to music, Theo Wangemann oversaw the first regular production of
>> pre-recorded
>> cylinders at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey in 1888-89,
>> ushering in
>> the beginnings of the American musical recording industry. Then, in
>> 1889-90, Wangemann
>> played a prominent role in introducing Edison’s invention to continental
>> Europe.
>>
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Stephan Puille is a conservator of archaeological finds and technical
>> employee at the
>> Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW Berlin) - University of
>> Applied
>> Sciences. For more than ten years he studies the history of sound
>> recording from the
>> beginning up to 1914, holds lectures and writes articles on the subject. In
>> addition, he
>> is a phonograph and phonogram collector who concentrates on early and
>> historically
>> significant items. Contact: Stephan Puille, Hochschule für Technik und
>> Wirtschaft
>> Berlin, Wilhelminenhofstraße 75A, 12459 Berlin, Germany. E-mail:
>> stephan.pui...@htw-berlin.de
>>
>> Patrick Feaster (pfeas...@gmail.com, 812-331-0047) is a researcher and
>> educator
>> specializing in the history and culture of sound media. A co-founder of
>> FirstSounds.org
>> and two-time Grammy nominee, he received his doctorate in Folklore and
>> Ethnomusicology
>> in 2007 from Indiana University Bloomington, where he is currently a
>> lecturer in the
>> Department of Communication and Culture, a member of the Media Preservation
>> Initiative,
>> and an instructor for the School of Continuing Studies.
>>
>> Thomas Edison National Histo
