Voices From the Past

Several weeks ago, I was looking online for recitations of poems written by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  After finding a few I enjoyed, I stumbled upon something remarkable...a recording of Tennyson himself reading Charge of the Light Brigade.  At first, I wondered how this was even possible, given Tennyson's era.  Ulysses, one of his best-known poems, was written in 1833. Charge of the Light Brigade chronicled an episode in the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War, and was published before the year of the battle was over.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I remembered learning in school about anthropologists in the early 1900s using wax cylinders to make ethnographic audio recordings.  While Tennyson died before the 20th century began, he did live until the last decade of the 19th century. As I found out, he was just in time to be alive during the first recordings of sound. Thanks to a charitable post-war effort (more on that later) he was recorded in 1890, reading one of his well-known poems.

There's quite a bit of information available online concerning the development and history of this technology, and it makes for an interesting tale.  A very brief and incomplete summary goes something like this: Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, utilizing tin cylinders that would soon evolve, with significant development by Alexander Graham Bell and his associates at the Volta Laboratory, into the wax cylinders famously used to make several recordings around the turn of the century, including Tennyson's recitation.

How Tennyson's recording came about is itself quite an interesting tidbit of history. While trying to learn about this, I read that thirty-five years after the famous Battle of Balaclava, many of the survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade were impoverished and seemingly forgotten. Somehow, this came to light and, during the subsequent public condemnation, a magazine initiated a charitable fund for the veterans.

Charge of the Light Brigade (William Simpson, 1855)

Three recordings were made for this philanthropic endeavor, a 19th century antecedent to We Are the World: Tennyson's recitation of his poem about the charge; a short speech by Florence Nightingale, who rose to fame during the Crimean War; and a rendition of the bugle charge from the battle performed by Martin Landfried, a veteran of Balaclava.

All three recordings have survived to the present day.  Listening to them is a rare treat; give it a try for an unexpected window into the past.

Martin Landfried playing the bugle charge as heard at the Battle of Balaclava.
Florence Nightingale speaking.
Alfred Lord Tennyson reciting Charge of the Light Brigade.


Notes:

The text of Landfriend's comments before playing the bugle is as follows:

“I am trumpeter Landfried, one of the surviving trumpeters of the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. I am now going to sound the bugle that was sounded at Waterloo, and sound the charge that was sounded at Balaclava on that very same bugle; the 25th of October, 1854.”

Martin Landfried (William Avenell & Co, Brighton)

It seems there is some confusion concerning the bugler's name: the British Library Sound Archive records it as Martin Lanfried, while he is referred to as Kenneth Landfrey by the Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University.  Other online sources record various spellings of his name.  However, an authoritative biography from a nonprofit historical organization in Britain, maintains his name was Martin Leonard Landfried. They have quite a lot of information about him, including that he was wounded in the arm at the Battle of Balaclava, but continued the charge until his horse was killed.  He wound up being sent to the barracks-turned-hospital at which Florence Nightingale treated the war's injured.

***

Here is the text of Florence Nightingale's recording:

“When I am no longer even a memory, just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safe to shore. Florence Nightingale.” (There were two recordings of this; perhaps one was a rehearsal.)

Florence Nightingale

***

And here is Charge of the Light Brigade (it is difficult to make out all the words in the recording without referencing the text):

Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?  
Not tho’ the soldier knew
  Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:  
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them  
  Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell  
  Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
  All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke  
  Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
  Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,    
Cannon behind them
  Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well  
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
  Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?  
O the wild charge they made!
  All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
  Noble six hundred!