Great Historical Recordings‘Life’s but a walking shadowA poor player that struts and fretsHis hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more.’ Cassette 1 — Early Recordings of Actors in Shakespeare With the development of Edison’s Phonograph in the 1880s,the ephemeral art of the actor found a little more permanence. Never againwould a famous actor after his death be ‘heard no more’, and future generationswould be able to judge for themselves whether his reputation was justified. Since the 17th century, a classical actor’s reputation hasstood or fallen by his interpretation of Shakespeare, so this first cassettelooks at the changing styles of Shakespearian acting from the beginning ofrecorded sound in the 1880s, to the late 1940s. If only we could have heard the voice of Richard Burbage,the first great performer of Hamlet, or hear for ourselves whether Garrickspoke Shakespeare with his native Lichfield accent. Fortunately recordings havesurvived of the greatest actor of the Victorian age, Sir Henry Irving. In 1888, the personal representative of Edison, ColonelGouraud, came to England with a prototype of the new Phonograph, and publicizedhis employer’s new invention by recording some of the most eminent figures inEnglish society. After a dinner party at the Colonel’s, Irving was requested torecite something, but he was nervous and, as his host said, ‘frightened out ofhis voice’. Nevertheless he appeared to be intrigued by this ‘mostextraordinary instrument phenomenon.’ He wrote to Ellen Terry: ‘You speak intoit and everything is recorded, voice, tone, intonation, everything. You turn alittle wheel, and forth it comes, and can be repeated ten thousands of times.Only fancy what this suggests’ Eventually, Irving mastered the new technique of directinghis voice down a ‘speaking-tube’, which caused a needle, attached to adiaphragm, to vibrate and leave an impression of sound-waves on a wax cylinder.The needle then retraced its journey through the grooves, playing back therecording through a large conically shaped horn. The bigger the horn, thelouder the sound.Sir Henry was not over impressed with the result: ‘Is thatmy voice? My God!’The phonograph was hardly more than a drawing-roomentertainment at this stage, and some years away from commercial development,so the survival of the recordings of Irving included here is littleshort of a miracle. These early cylinders are important historic documents,which, due to the limitations of the technology give us just an impression ofIrving, Terry and American Edwin Booth — which is why they have been placed atthe end of the cassette. The first is a speech from Richard III, which Irving firstplayed at the Lyceum in 1877. As one observer said: ‘he never lost nobility,the nobility of Lucifer.’ Irving revived Richard III in 1896, which is probablywhen this recording was made.The second is a recording of Wolsey‘s speech in Henry VIII,which Irving played in 1892. He seems more at his ease in this recording,leading some scholars to doubt whether this is in fact Irving at all, or one ofhis many imitators. For me, the inclusion of a line not written by Shakespeareat the end of the speech makes it authentic. It is an extra line added byIrving to cover the dying Cardinal’s well-documented exit across the Lyceumstage: ‘Come Cromwell, let us go in. My spirit is broken, — Ah!’ He also adds a postscript, saying ‘Iconsider that one of the finest tragedies in Shakespeare.’ Irving’s idiosyncratic pronunciation was much commented uponby his contemporaries. He pronounced ‘dog’ as ‘dug’, and famously in The Bells,said ‘Tack the rup from mey nek’ (‘Take the rope from my neck’). Thesepeculiarities are evident in these recordings. For instance, in Richard III hesays ‘Sun of Yark’, for ‘Sun of York.’ Irving was well aware of his deficiencies. He himself had corrected abad stammer he had had since a boy, and to make the most of his thin voice hemade use of nasal resonance. But it was not vocal power that made Irving agreat actor; it was his gift of being able to hold an audience by the force ofhis magnetic personality. We can only catch a glimpse of his talent throughthese rather primitive recordings. In the United States, the great Shakespearian tragedian, andIrving’s contemporary, was Edwin Booth (1833-93). He came from a theatricalfamily that was blighted with real-life tragedy. His father, Junius BrutusBooth, had suffered from bouts of insanity, and Edwin’s brother, John WilkesBooth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865. This event cast a shadow over therest of Edwin’s life and career. In 1882, Irving invited Booth to play Othelloin London, opposite his Iago. Booth’s Othello was described by his biographerWilliam Winter as ‘affluent with feeling, eloquent, picturesque, and admirablefor sustained power and symmetry.’ In 1890, Booth made a private recording ofOthello’s speech to the Senate for his wife, which is full of quiet dignity.Does one detect in the restrained and almost naturalistic delivery thebeginnings of an understanding and sensitivity towards the new technology? Irving’s stage partner at the Lyceum from 1878 to 1896 wasEllen Terry (1847-1928), and no actress was more loved by her followers. Shewas intensely feminine and the embodiment of Shakespeare’ heroines. As onereviewer said, ‘it was as if she had met, and talked with, and lived with themall.’ After leaving the stage, she toured extensively with her lecture-recitalon Shakespeare’s Heroines, and was persuaded, whilst in America in 1911, tomake the recordings included here. Astonishingly she was 63 at the time, buther youthful energy, which she never seems to have lost, is still in evidence,giving us a taste of those performances with Irving of more than 30 yearsearlier. In preparing for her Ophelia, which she first played in1878, she studied lunatics in an asylum: ‘I noticed a young girl gazing at thewall. I went between her and the wall to see her face. It was quite vacant, butthe body expressed that she was waiting, waiting. Suddenly she threw up herhands and sped across the room like a swallow. I never forgot it; the movementwas as poignant as it was beautiful.’ Ellen Terry did not think her Juliet,which she first played in 1882, was a success, lacking, she said, ‘originalimpulse.’ But Irving admired it and her recording of the Potion scene iscompelling. Her Portia, from The Merchant of Venice, which she had played asearly as 1875, was ‘a perfect woman, in all the attributes that fascinate’, yetin the trial scene Ellen invested her ‘with that fine light of celestial anger— that momentary thrill of moral austerity.’ (William Winter). Her lastperformance with Irving in 1902, was in the role of Portia. After the death of Irving in 1905, the mantle ofShakespearian production fell to Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917). Between thelate 1890s and 1917 he mounted 16 lavish Shakespearian productions at his owntheater, Her Majesty’s. Tree was something of an idealist and a dreamer, andwas lacking in self-discipline as an actor. This did not make him reallysuitable for playing Shakespeare, particularly passionate or heroic parts. Histalent was as a character actor, and using his considerable skills of make-up,he was able to create bizarre and eccentric characters, which were his greatestsuccesses. (As an example, hear his Svengali on cassette 2). In 1898, he mounted an epic production of Julius Caesar,with sets by Alma Tadema, and large, carefully choreographed, crowd scenes. Inchoosing which part to play he wrote: ‘For the scholar, Brutus, for the actor,Cassius, for the public Antony.’ He chose the public. Not having had any vocal training, Tree founddifficulty in sustaining the verse and reaching a rhetorical climax. Perhapsthis is why his recording of Antony’s speech over Caesar’s body, made in 1906,feels as if it’s on the edge of being sung. It is constructed like an aria,each line moving up a semitone until the climax is reached. It sounds odd toour ears, and a far cry from modern Shakespearian performing styles, yet, giventhe size of the theater he had to fill, this grandiose, unnaturalistic stylewould have been very thrilling. In the second recording, Tree is much more at home with hisbroad and rich characterization of Falstaff. The disciples of Irving and Tree who made early recordingsincluded Arthur Bourchier, Lewis Waller, Frank Benson, and JohnstonForbes-Robertson.Arthur Bourchier (1863-1927) was an enthusiast forShakespeare. His acting is full of ardor and energy, broad brushstrokes, withlittle space forsubtlety and delicacy. He was an aggressive actor-manager,who championed contemporary playwrights like Pinero and Jones. One reviewer as‘merely a bluff and rugged warrior’ described his performance as Macbeth, hererecorded in 1909. Nevertheless, I think he probably represents the most usualstyle of playing Shakespeare at the turn of the century. The good looks of Lewis Waller (1860-1915), soon establishedhim as a matinee idol, and he was renowned for playing romantic parts.Thousands of postcards were published for his adoring female fans, which bandedthemselves together into a society called ‘Keen On Waller.’ They worebuttonhole badges displaying they were ‘K.O.W.s’ — which caused much mirthfulcomment in the popular press of the day! Waller starred as Henry V in 1901, when his ‘ringing voiceand striking presence’ made it a popular success. J.T. Grein wrote of his performance:‘He quivers with passion, with excitement, with righteous ardor that we in ourseats begin to feel the effect.’ A century later we can still share in thatexperience. Sir Frank Benson (1858-1939) an Oxford graduate andShakespeare scholar was also a keen sportsman, and his approach to Shakespeareis redolent of the playing field. Max Beerbohm wickedly reviewed his productionof Henry V in 1900 in this vein: ‘The fielding was excellent, and so was thebatting. Speech after speech was sent spinning across the boundary.’ Nevertheless, Benson and his ‘team’ toured Shakespeareunceasingly throughout Britain and its Empire from the 1890s through to the1930s, giving generations their first experience of the plays. Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853-1937) possessed greatphysical beauty, a scholarly mind and in his heyday a voice ‘of gold and silvertones’. Fine attributes for an actor, but Forbes-Robertson, despite his successnever really cared for acting. In 1913, he was a popular Hamlet, described byone reviewer as being ‘patient and careful, the temperament of an Englishgentleman’, and George Bernard Shaw said his performance showed ‘a genuinedelight in Shakespeare’s art and a natural familiarity with the plane of hisimagination.’ It is this delight and familiarity that comes across in hisrecorded lecture on Hamlet made in 1928. His delivery is more in keeping withmodern approaches to Shakespearian acting, relaxed and naturalistic, lessrhetorical.His approach sounds distinctly more modern than the earlyrecording of Hamlet by John Gielgud (1904-2000), which seems to be overshadowedby the 19th century acting tradition, which was his background; Ellen Terry washis great aunt. Similarly, his sense of rhetoric and poetry dominates his performanceof Richard II, sometimes at the expense of naturalism. To be fair, Gielgud of course spanned the 20th century, andthese are early attempts at roles he was to make his own. He was only 23 whenhe made the Richard II recording in 1927. A later recording made in the 1950sis exemplary. The comparison between Forbes-Robertson and Gielgud shows that aparticular acting style does not necessarily belong to one generation. Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976), and her husband Lewis Casson(1875-1969) were stalwarts of the Old Vic in the early years of the 20thcentury, then under the management of the eccentric Lilian Baylis. Her aim wasto make Shakespeare popular for ordinary working people. She greatly encourageda new generation of actors to join her company. Her recruits, John Gielgud,Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson were of the new school ofShakespearian acting promoted by William Poel and taught by Ben Greet. Poeldesired to sweep away all the accretions of the 19th century and get back to afaster, more immediate style of verse speaking. This recording from 1930, ofThorndike and Casson in Macbeth, well illustrates the changing tempo ofperformance.With the advent of electrical recording in the 1920s, wherea microphone was first used and the volume could be controlled by an amplifier,the quality of reproduction significantly improves, and the style of actingbegins to adapt to this more sophisticated advance. Hitherto, the actors hadmade little concession to the recording process. The breadth and size of theirperformances did not change significantly from the theater to the studio.An actor perfectly at ease with the medium and using it toenhance and increase the effectiveness of his performance is John Barrymore(1882-1942). Like Edwin Booth, he belonged to a theatrical dynasty, and somecritics think he could have been as great a Shakespearian actor as Booth. Hewas a sensational Hamlet in 1922 on both sides of the Atlantic, but turnedinstead to Hollywood becoming a matinee idol. The ease and confidentiality of his delivery in the speech from Henry VIshow his experience in the subtle world of the film. The speech from Hamlet,made as a ‘promotion’ towards the end of his life may show some vocal signs ofhis fast life style, but his natural and intelligent delivery also makes usthink of the fascinating Shakespearian actor he might have been.An actor who was both a film and a Shakespearian actor, andoccasionally managed to combine both, was Laurence Olivier (1907-1989). Theexcerpt here from the film soundtrack of Hamlet (1948) shows how far soundrecording had progressed in 60 years. The high quality of the sound recordingallows Olivier to take us right into the mind of Hamlet; he seems to be justthinking rather than speaking the lines.By contrast, the Harfleur speech from his film of Henry V(1944) is boldly theatrical. It isa trumpet call to arms at a time of national conflict, and in its styleunashamedly takes us back to the ‘ringing voice’ of Lewis Waller.These early recordings show us how the art of actingShakespeare, which had been handed on from generation to generation, waschanged and refined by the invention of recorded sound. As the 20th century progressed, the larger style gave way to a more subtle andinternalized style, matching the techniques required for those two othertechnological revolutions of the last century, film and television. Thesechanges have ensured that Shakespeare has not remained solely the prerogativeof the theater, but has reached an ever-increasing audience in the electronicage. Cassette 2 — Early Recordings: A Miscellany Our second cassette shows how the rapidly developing mediumof recorded sound caught the popular imagination in the early years of the 20thcentury. Jazz bands, brass bands, music-hall artists, politicians all rushed toget themselves on record, and actors were not far behind. Noel Coward(1899-1973) was always a successful self-publicist and soon realized thatrecorded excerpts from his plays would considerably help the box-office. Theexcerpts here, from Private Lives recorded in 1930 with the Master and thesparkling Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), capture forever the spirit and styleof the theater in the 1920s. An earlier popular theatrical duo were Fred Terry(1863-1933) and his wife Julia Neilson (1868-1957) who recorded their ‘hit’ TheScarlet Pimpernel in 1906. As A.E. Wilson said, ‘A handsomer pair of loversnever trod the boards or raised rubbish to the plane of pure delight.’ Rubbishor not, it was successfully revived throughout their long careers. Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917), as we have already seen,had a huge success mounting epic productions of Shakespeare, but his greatesttriumph came with the adaptation of Du Maurier’s novel Trilby, which he firstproduced in 1895. A character actor of considerable scope, with the aid of hisartistry in greasepaint, he brilliantly personified the evil Svengali. Hebrought Du Maurier’s drawings to life. A.E. Wilson describes his performance ashaving ‘the air of romantic shabbiness and picturesque grime with gutturalalien accent — the very tones of which struck a chill.’ He recorded this excerpt in 1906. There was a growing public for the theater in the early1900s. It was the heyday of the picture postcard and fans competed to collectwhole sets of their favorites. The recording companies too saw the potential inpersuading the stars to record their party pieces. One of the most beautifuland adored actors of his generation was Henry Ainley (1879-1945) who also had amusical voice ranging ‘from fluty sweetness to deep organ tone.’ Here he readsTennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade. Giving ‘impressions’ of famous people is nothing new, andBransby Williams (1870-1961) had a long and successful career as a ‘mimic’ (histerm) in the music hall — over 60 years in fact. The arrival of recorded soundwas a boon to the impersonator and Williams’ celebrated imitation of Irving inThe Bells has led some to question the authenticity of the Irving recordings(see cassette 1). He captures Irving’s vocal mannerisms to perfection, and itis not perhaps surprising to learn that Irving was ‘sensitive’ about hisimpersonators, of whom there were many. On one occasion, he called down thepower of the Lord Chamberlain to threaten the withdrawal of the offendingtheater’s license. Bransby Williams, seems to have escaped unscathed, andrecorded the extract included here around 1914. He was still performing it inhis eightieth year, 1950, on another piece of new technology — the television. Edith Evans (1888-1976), will always be associated with TheImportance of Being Earnest in which she gave the definitive performance ofLady Bracknell. The ‘handbag’ line must be the most imitated piece of theaterin the western world! But the performance she gave in John Gielgud’s 1939production was one of subtlety and detail: ‘I know those sort of women,’ shesaid, ‘they ring the bell and tell you to put a lump of coal on the fire; theyspoke meticulously, they were all very good-looking and didn’t have anynerves.’ Here she recreates her performance with her director John Gielgud,himself the very incarnation of John Worthing. Charles Laughton (1899-1962) was one of scores of Britishactors who made his name in Hollywood. Like Stan Laurel, he came to prefer theAmerican way of life, and scored a popular hit in the film Ruggles of Red Gap(1935), where he plays an English butler incongruously working in the WildWest. During the course of the action, Ruggles, the butler recites AbrahamLincoln’s Gettysburg Address to great effect. It is a fine speech and thisrecording, made in 1937, shows Laughton at his best. Towards the end of hislife, he made more use of his rhetorical skills and turned increasingly to therecital platform with readings from The Bible and Dickens. Recording companies were always looking for novelties, andmusic-hall artists performing sketches and monologues were very popular in thefirst half of the 20th century. Many comic moments from the films of Laurel andHardy for instance were transcribed to disc. The recording included here,though, was made to promote one of their far too infrequent visits to Britain.It is a curious paradox to think that these two stars, which made their name infilms without sound, could be so successful in sound without vision. It is afine example of two geniuses adapting their skills to the now well-establishedmedium of sound recording. We end the English section with another ‘novelty act’ byBransby Williams. Throughout his long career, The Stage Doorkeeper was one ofhis most popular ‘turns’. In it, he mimicked the most successful performers ofthe day, continually changing them to remain topical. Here, frozen in time are the ‘voices’ of the performers ofthe moment in 1914, the year of the recording. George Alexander, theactor-manager, Forbes Robertson as Hamlet, and the music-hall artists Chirgwin,‘the White-Eyed Kaffir’; G.P. Huntley the silly fool type; R.G.Knowles, the eccentric comedian; Fred Emney and George Formby (senior) with hischaracteristic cough. Many of these names, now long forgotten by the public,were never recorded themselves, and it is poignant to hear them one stepremoved as it were. It makes one grateful that so many early recordings havesurvived of the great artists of yesterday, and I hope this compilation willhelp to bring those ‘poor players’ out of the ‘shadows’ and once more, into thelight. Recording companies on the continent were also eager topreserve for posterity the leading actors of their day. Most famous and mostnotorious was the great Sarah Bernhardt (1845-1923). Ellen Terry said of her: ‘Shewas as transparent as an azalea — like a cloud, only not so thick. Smoke from aburning paper describes her more nearly! She was hollow-eyed, thin, almost consumptive-looking. Her body was notthe prison of her soul, but its shadow — she always seemed to me more a symbol,an ideal, an epitome than a woman — which makes her so easy in such lofty partsas Phèdre.’ Her voice was variously described as a ‘golden bell’, or the‘silver sound of running water’. Its sustained power in this extract from Racine’sPhèdre recorded in 1903 is thrilling. Two of her leading men are also featured here. JeanMounet-Sully (1841-1916) was a major tragic actor of the 19th century whosepassion, conviction and sheer dramatic power overwhelmed his audiences. Heplayed opposite Bernhardt in Hernani by Victor Hugo, but he was a renownedOedipus, recorded here in 1912. Constant Coquelin (1841-1909) was essentially a comic actormaking his debut at the Comédie-Française. He joined Sarah Bernhardt’s companyin 1892, but his strong personality clashed with hers and their association wasshort-lived. He will always be known as the originator of Rostand’s Cyrano deBergerac, which he played over 400 times. The Russian bass, Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) was aformidable talent. He was a great singer and also a great actor. On stage heblended the two arts. His voice ‘rolled out like melodious thunder’ and couldbe at once ‘powerful and caressing.’ He left the Soviet Union in 1921, andbecame an international artist. In 1922, Nadson recorded him performingReverie. Alexander Moissi (1880-1935), although of Italian/Albanianparentage, became a leading German actor from 1905, working with the innovativeMax Reinhardt in Berlin. He was a notable proponent of the title role ofGoethe’s Faust, recorded here in 1927, and in 1930 came to London with hisversion of Hamlet. Schubert famously set Goethe’s Erlkoenig. Both recordingsshow us his rich and musical speaking voice. Notes by David Timson David Timson In addition to creating Great Historical ShakespeareRecordings for Naxos AudioBooks, David Timson is the author of the highlyacclaimed, The History of Theater. A familiar and versatile audio and radiovoice, Timson has also performed in modern and classic plays across GreatBritain and abroad, including Wild Honey for Alan Ayckbourn, Hamlet, The Man ofMode, and The Seagull. He has been seen on television in Nelson’s Column andSwallows and Amazons, and in the film The Russia House.