Robert Browning - History of Sound Recording

History of Sound Recording

At a dinner party on 7 April 1889, at the home of Browning's friend the artist Rudolf Lehmann, an Edison cylinder phonograph recording was made on a white wax cylinder by Edison's British representative, George Gouraud. In the recording, which still exists, Browning recites part of "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" (and can be heard apologizing when he forgets the words). When the recording was played in 1890 on the anniversary of his death, at a gathering of his admirers, it was said to be the first time anyone's voice "had been heard from beyond the grave."

Read more about this topic:  Robert Browning

Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, sound and/or recording:

    “The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
    —Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

    “The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
    —Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

    “It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror—on the things that I might have avoided.”
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    “I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
    —Henry Miller (1891–1980)