VOICES FROM THE PAST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 218, 27 August 1943, Page 13

VOICES FROM THE PAST

HAT do we know about the people of the past? Very little, really. We know that Socrates is reputed to have been very ugly, that William II. had red hair, that Demosthenes practised speaking with pebbles in his mouth. We have enough portraits to guess what Queen Elizabeth looked like, and to wonder wherein lay the charm of Mary Stuart. But about the voices of most historical characters, we know almost nothing. Actors, orators, poets and statesmen have until comparatively recently been remembered only by

their writings and by the reports of others. It will not be so in the future: the camera and the recording-machine will attend to that. Coming generations will be able to hear as well as see people long since dead. To a limited extent, of course, we can already do that. When Edison, in 1878, received his first patent for his phonograph, he is reported to have said, "It will henceforth be possible to preserve for posterity the voices as well as the words of our Washingtons, our Lincolns, ‘and our Gladstones, and for them to be heard by generations yet unborn." Recently a discovery of peculiar interest was made at Edison’s laboratory at Menlo Park. Carefully stowed away in an old dusty case were records of the voices of a large number of famous men and women made during their lifetimes. Some of them, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Disraeli, Florence Nightingale, W. E, Gladstone, and Edison himself were recorded on old-style wax cylinder records. They were discovered by Robert Vincent, now 39 years old, who as a boy 25 years ago learnt to record by doing odd jobs round the Edison laboratories. This collection is the basis of the new ZB programme Voices of Yesterday. Each programme is built round anecdotes of some famous person and the climax of the broadcast is the actual voice of

the celebrity. You may hear Kenneth Landfrey, a trumpeter in the Light Brigade, sounding again in 1890 the charge as he sounded it at Balaclava in 1864. You may hear the words of Florence Nightingale at 70, shrill, wavering, and full of emotion, as she’ says: "When I am no longer a memory-just a name-I hope my voice brings to history the great work of my life." Other voices we may remember our-selves-Peary relating his experiences at the North Pole, Conan Doyle telling of the original creating of Sherlock Holmes, Marconi telling about wireless, Enrico Caruso singing in 1897, or Ellen Terry playing her part as Portia. These are just a few of the many famous people whose voices may now be heard again. This programme is on the air from 1ZB at 6 p.m. on Mondays and it will be heard from other stations in due course,