[78-L] Royal Wedding - not OT

[Kristjan Saag]

Julian Vein asked:

 > How come that recordings of "celebrities" from the early days of the
industry are of such poor quality, whereas commercial recordings were
generally fine?
--
"The Victoria cylinder", if genuine, had probably been used several 
times for recording. Here's what a IASA member, Bernhard Wichert, writes 
about the cylinder on his website http://www.suizidal.de/

 > A very much disputed recording of 1888 is the 'Queen Victoria 
Cylinder', discovered in 1991, a graphophone cylinder made at Balmoral 
by Sidney Morse. Only about 8-10 words can be understood.
When Thomas Edison's phonograph was demonstrated to the Queen, she had 
no use for it, but when it was explained to her that a border dispute 
with Ethiopia might be best handled with the backward King Menelik by 
sending him a queenly phonographic message, she spoke briefly but 
imperiously into a large horn device to express her hope for 'friendship 
between our two Empires.' The cylinder recording, the Queen commanded, 
'will be sealed up; and destroyed after he has received the message.' It 
was duly played by her representative in Abyssinia, accepted with 
ceremony-the king stood when he heard Victoria's voice-and replayed 
several times, accomplishing its task. Then, Colonel Harrington 
reported, 'The cylinder was returned to me and immediately broken into 
pieces as promised.' But the precious relic-or at least a copy of 
it-survives secretly, the Queen's voice raspily preserved for history. 
It was her only proven contact with recorded sound.(St.Weintraub, 
Engines Of Change, no date)
The following comment comes from our IASA-member Nigel Bewley of the 
British Library Sound Archive (2003): 'In 1991 the Science Museum asked 
the British Library Sound Archive for help in transferring the cylinder 
and we were able to oblige. The cylinder contains three 'tracks' or 
separate recordings. One is in the opposite direction from the other 
two. One recording is of a man (?) whistling, one has so much surface 
noise that nothing can be discerned and another has the recording of a 
woman's voice. Some words can be made out: 'My fellow Britons....' at 
the beginning and '...I have never forgotten.' at the end, with the 
'track' lasting circa twenty seconds. Even with much CEDAR processing 
etc we cannot improve on that (for the time being, anyway). There is no 
certainty that the recording is of Queen Victoria. It is possible to be 
a recording of a lady-in-waiting or another person present. Queen 
Victoria was not particularly shy or a shrinking violet but it may be 
that to shout or at least speak in an exaggerated way down a speaking 
tube (to energise the diaphragm and stylus) whilst in the presence of a 
'tradesman' demonstrating the machine, representatives of the 'great and 
the good' of British court society, visiting dignitaries, servants and 
flunkies may have been beneath her dignity. Queen Victoria may have 
instructed an aide to make the recording on her behalf. (The opinion 
contained in this paragraph is my own personal view). There is, as 
pointed out by John Ross, a suggestion that Queen Victoria recorded a 
message, on disc, for the King of Ethiopia and it was destroyed 
according to her wishes after it was played to the King. No copies have 
so far surfaced, nor remnants of the original.'

--
Kristjan