[78-L] Help Identifying a 78

[Chris Zwarg]

At 18:02 01.11.2008, you wrote:
>Hello to the list.
>
>I'm new to collecting 78's.  I just came across the following record.  It
>appears to be pretty old, and I would estimate it to be approximately 1912 -
>1914, based on the other records that came with it.  It is one sided.
>
>Label: Etablissements Gaumont
>
>Number etched on record: 02564
>
>The name of the piece was hand written on the label, and I cant read it, but
>i recognize the tune.  It is a rendition of "The Palms" by Jen-Baptiste
>Faure.

in French: "Les rameaux".


>Thanks for any help that you could provide.
>
>Sincerely,
>Eric

This is a synchronous sound disc to accompany a short film of the singer. Léon Gaumont, together with German film pioneer Oskar Messter, invented a contraption to keep a gramophone and film projector in sync, and between 1903 to 1914, several hundred musical shorts were made. Today, the records are quite rare (they were never sold to the public but only leased to theatres with the film prints) - of the (nitrate) films however, barely a few dozen survive; the "Vitaphone Project" is child's play in comparison...

Sorry I cannot identify the singer on yours (there is no proper catalogue of these discs/films yet) except maybe by listening - Gaumont regularly employed Parisian opera and cabaret stars who made other records as well so the voice might sound familiar to me. An MP3 sent off-list to my e-mail would do.

Chris Zwarg