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@@georgejohnson1498 Yes, unusual but quite lovely.

@georgejohnson1498 It's very odd: but I'm sure it's a dubbing. Quite how they substituted that one word in those days is something I can't shed any light on, but they were obviously more clever than we might have expected!

@@vintagesounds3878 Some very clever work, and if it were literally a transfer of the original masters part with someone cued in the speak the word, I would expect a much noisier surface, but this is very clean . I am guessing there is something here that has been lost in time technically. Best wishes from George

@georgejohnson1498 I think that must be right. I assume there must have been some form of "gate" almost in the form of a revolving door that would cut off the recording and allow the speaker to insert a word. But I wonder what Edison actually said in the original!

@@maria-ceciliapeon5776 Thanks!

Thanks.

Thenk you George!

It's certainly rather good for the period. I haven't been able to work out when Byng was at the Alhambra, but Jones apparently started there later in 1909. I'll see if I can do some more sleuthing: it was only as a result of digging that I found the photo of Jones! Prince Olaf sounds way off the mark: very curious!

I can already add a little more. Julian Jones was born in 1883 and died in London on 31 December 1930. He was acting as Musical Director for Beka (which started its British operations in late 1905) by at least late 1907, and it appears that he was simultaneously acting as Musical Director for British Homophone by at least early 1908. At that stage, he was Principal Violin of the Alhambra Orchestra, where the Conductor was George Byng. It seems that as Principal Violin, Jones was also Deputy Conductor. Jones left the Alhambra and became Conductor at the London Hippodrome at the beginning of June 1912. Byng was still Principal Conductor at the Alhambra at that time, but on 22 January 1913, 'The Era' announced his resignation, as he had been secured by the Gaiety Theatre. He first conducted at the Gaiety in April 1913, but it appears that he only spent 3 months there. By at least 1913, Byng was Musical Director for Edison in Britain. I haven't yet been able to trace Byng for the next couple of years, but in mid 1915 he joined British Zonophone as Musical Director. At that stage, Zonophone was being run as a separate entity. When that changed a few years later and Zonophone went back to being a subsidiary of The Gramophone Company, Byng became Musical Director of The Gramophone Company.

@@georgejohnson1498 Thanks George!

@@rogerg4916 Yes, very well done!

@@hrbooksmusic7878 Thank you!

@ As always, thanks are all mine!

@@hrbooksmusic7878 Thanks!

@ 🤩🤩🤩

@georgejohnson1498 Thanks George. Something a little different!

I like the comparison! Glad you enjoyed it!

@@BeeTee6017 Thanks!

@@graemepaesingsongs3480 Undoubtedly!

@@MSchrei Thank you!

@@leestamm3187 Gluck was certainly a great singer. Thanks.

@@georgejohnson1498 I expect you're right, George, and that we are much closer to Mozart here than at any time since.

@@vintagesounds3878 Barring the individuality of singers, I do believe that at least going back to Haydn and Mozart, we can gain a much clearer understanding of the style they would have known and expect [and composed for] than our current style, or indeed much of what is called HIP, which so often is crude, horrible sounding and rushed. I see no reason to think that the best musicians of the 1920s and 1930s [when recordings tend to give a good impression of the performance without too many compromises] were much different in musical style, taste and musicianship of their forebears a century or a century and half earlier. This one of the compelling reasons to listen to and study great music from the early era of recordings. They yield information that no encyclopaedia of music written in words alone could describe nearly so clearly. To my mind this alone would be justification for the phenomenal efforts you have been making for years now to restore these wonders of the gramophone to a wider audience, instead of them gradually fading, as good as permanently, from the musical consciousness. I am so grateful for the [by now!] countless recordings that you have allowed me to listen to and in so many cases introduced me to, in music new to me or known all my life. Tahnk you and best wishes from George

@georgejohnson1498 Thanks George! Goodness, I've been doing this for almost 6 years now. I'm not sure whether I ever expected that there would be as much content here as there now is, but I'm certainly satisfied that it serves a useful purpose,including the opportunity to share a significant quantity of the recordings that I've been fortunate enough to acquire over the years.

@@vintagesounds3878 Dear VS, I think I discovered the question of style about fifty years agomainly in recordings of Elgar and strangely Schubert. At school we had nice collection of about 400 LPs in music from Handel and Bach to Sibelius and Walton [including some Britten] at the modern end as it was in the 1970s. I also had about fifty LPs myself with such luminaries as Boult, Klemperer, Kletzky and others. Obviously these LPs represented the then prevalent style from the 1950s to 1970s. Where it got interesting was to refer to the three or four thousand 78s in the school library, which went back to the dawn of of electric recording in 1925. Immediately it became clear to me that Elgar played his own music very differently to Boult or Barbirolli on LPs, but that Harty's Enigma Variations recording or Salmon's [NQHO with Wood] were very similar to Elgar's own 78 recordings. There was a style distinctly different from the modern ['50s to '70s] norm. That fascinated me and set me off on a long journey of exploration of style in older recordings. In Schubert's Great C Major Symphony the school library had Boult twice, on 1934 78s with the BBC SO and LP with the LPO. It was clear that Boult's sense of style had been utterly transformed over a nearly four decades between the two recordings. I asked the music master about this and he put it down to the actual recordings, but though I did not argue [you don't really argue with teachers!] I could discern something different. The actual approach to the music was almost completely unrecognisable. In yesteryear, the effect was less perfect in detail and had more momentum, more naturalness, less fussiness, and I always though and still do, more expressiveness. That is why - almost regardless of the music being played - I find your restorations so utterly rewarding. Pierre Duvachal in Haydn's 45th. Symphony was a revelation for me. Salmons and Tertis in Halvorsen's Handel Chaccone. Amazing. Nobody would play the music like that nowadays. The risks taking, the daring directness. Not bluntness or dryness, but like hacking through a thicket of briars rather than walking over a bowling green. I apologise for the long replies here, but I have long thought that in great music, the style of playing is the second most important thing after the quality of the music itself. Best wishes from George

@@georgejohnson1498 Yes, George, style has changed so much during the last century that what we hear nowadays sounds like it comes from a different world. How fortunate that we still have access to the other world!

@@rutgervangestel Yes, you're right.

@@violinistoftaupo Agreed!

@georgejohnson1498 Thanks George. Yes, rather effective!

@@vintagesounds3878 I imagine that the sound of the pealing bells was accomplished using a set of tubular bells, which are standard percussion instruments in most large orchestras, while the deeper tones were sounded using a set of gongs (again, found in the percussion section of most orchestras.)

@@sebthi7890 Thanks!

She is absolutely delightful!

Thanks George!

Thanks. Plenty more where that came from!

@ Good to know! 🤩

Thanks George. More to come!

It's certainly different in the German!

Lovely memories!

@@alexandrkolesnikov9062 Thank you!

@hrbooksmusic7878 Thanks! This is quite delightful! You'll have to pardon my free translation, but somehow "Vienna Migratory Birds" just didn't seem to be something that would appeal to an English listener!!

@ You are absolutely right, VS, and somehow the swallows are the epitome of migratory birds here in Europe… 😊 I just mentioned the exact translation in case someone was interested - but I prefer the English title you chose for this lovely melody! 👍

@@kratzkamer Agreed!

@georgejohnson1498 Thanks George!

@@hrbooksmusic7878 Thanks: it certainly is pleasant!

@@vintagesounds3878 As you know, I‘m a huge fan of anything that sounds even remotely like (a good) operetta… 😊