While surfing around (I really should be grading, but whatever), I wanted to see if there was a reason why Monty Python used the Liberty Bell march as their theme song. (Apparently no reason, other than that it was bouncy, and the bell sounds could be comical).
And I ran across what is a copy of perhaps the first recording ever of the Liberty Bell March. (mp3 format for Quicktime.) It's from 1896. It's scratchy and hard to hear, as you'd expect, but it's from 1896. What is that, 114 years ago? That amazes me. And now I wonder if there are other Edison Grand Concert Band recordings out there online. (I checked. There's only one at that same site - Internet Archives, but there are other old audio clips.)
There's also a rather lovely taken-from-a-78-recording version of the Incidental Music Mendelssohn wrote for Midsummer Night's Dream, which is another favorite piece of music of mine.
(The rabbit hole goes even deeper: I guess I'd never browsed around on The Internet Archive, but man, it looks like there's a lot of fascinating stuff on there)
1 comment:
Some of us can't hear that piece without waiting for The Foot to come down.
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