I READ WITH GREAT INTER est Frederic D. Schwarz’s article about the oldest talkie (“Notes From the Field,” Spring 2003), which described the world’s oldest film with synchronized sound, recorded in Thomas Edison’s laboratory. It was fascinating, but I was sorry to reach the end of the article without finding the answer to a question that has puzzled me for several years: What piece was the violinist playing?
In the late 1990s the producer of an IMAX film asked me to provide music to be dubbed over that film clip. It was to be part of a film for a major history museum. (I play fiddle as an avocation, and my primary work is writing and developing history-of-technology exhibits.) At the time, the cylinder with the original music on it was still being restored, and we couldn’t find out what the violinist was playing. The dancers seemed to be waltzing, so I watched the violinist’s bow to come up with a waltz that reasonably matched the bow’s movement. Once it was recorded, the producers muddied the recording a bit to make it sound old. (It’s the only time I’ve recorded anything that was deliberately altered to sound worse.) I played a waltz that I had learned from friends in North Carolina. What was the original music?
Frederic Schwarz replies: It was a barcarole from a French operetta of 1877, Les Cloches de Corneville (The Chimes of Normandy), by Robert Planquette, which was popular at the time the film was made. A recording is available from EMI Classics.
