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  • I was expecting a more baritone voice from Tchaikowsky he being older already at this time, something like Rubinstein's. It's bizarre to hear him whistle though. Too bad, advanced technology didn't come sooner otherwise we could be having real blasts from the past.

  • HOLY FUCK ITS CONFUSING

  • ...I just heard Tchaikovsky's voice. Holy fuck.

  • 1890 - in quality or content you can't expect much then. Just a bunch of people horsing around. The earliest cylinder records of wax date from c.1888. A lead one exists from 1877, but it's mostly testing and experimenting.

  • RIP headphone users. May you sleep in the heavens with our gay friend Tchaikovsky and enjoy his wondrous music for an eternity.

  • @tophatchristy

    no problem man.

    i'm also interested in such recordings

  • I neglected to look at 'show more'--thank you transforming art. Well, they are all just having fun right? We did it too in tape recorders--can you imagine what a miracle this must have been, then? So keep all that in mind when commenting!! So wonderful to hear the voice of one of the greatest composers of all time--nice tenor enthusiastic voice--and he seems to have a good sense of humor in spite of all the reports of his melancolia.

  • transformingArt -----> If not true, I get disappointed frankly. My God, hear the voice of one of the greatest teachers that I love is wonderful. Thank yoy!

  • ok, we need a russian speaker to translate if at all possible...

  • Comment removed

  • @windstorm1000 i know some Russian, but I have no idea what they are saying!

  • Lawrowskaja: The nasty beast you are! How dare he call me crafty!

  • no i like this video but im just wondering...

  • i dont know but it sounds like its cutted together

  • @karlsalz Oh, sorry. i get a little carried away.(Why do I even look at comments?) It' probably like that because its very aged. i have no experience in this, but thats just my theory.

  • so fake

  • @juresaiyan Pfft. Troll. This isn't fake. This is a historical recording, fool.

  • @tophatchristy i hope so.

  • Comment removed

  • The cylinder collection, including the Tchaikovsky recording, was donated by the Block family to the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, together with a detailed listing of what was on the (numbered) cylinders. The collection was taken away by the Russians in 1945 as looted art. As with the Troya treasures it took decades to "retrieve" the cylinders in the Pushkin archive. The German archive has never waived its cylinders, but kindly sent a xerox copy of the list to Russia, making the identification easy.

  • nonsense

  • No it's that on the recording machine from then it makes ur voice sound all weird

  • безусловно, должны быть сохранены и защищены для потомков. считывания, Петр.

  • Tchaikowsky looks like a man with a low pitched voice, apparently he had a higher pitch than expected...

  • what de heck? i think its a fake

  • @karlsalz And why do you think that? Give me a practical explanation. I don't think this is fake. This recording has been preserved for years. Do you know how old this is?

  • Comment removed

  • @karlsalz You know what? Nevermind. I don't need an explanation. If you think it's fake, that's fine. Just don't go around commenting about it. just click the dislike bar.

  • Did one of them have no nuts (high soprano) ?? I think this is a hoax. This sort of thing has been done before. College kids.

  • а чё он говорит то там?

  • @TheKalibanis в наушниках послушай и погромче

  • Tchaikovsky sounds like the Russian version of Winnie the Pooh

  • @makerofjam haha that made my day.

  • As deep lover of Tchaikovsky life and work I do have a question that I hope that someone kindly can answer. This recording was suppossedly found in the phonograph in 1997, 104 years after the composer dead. Who can make sure that the voice heard belongs to Pyotr Tchaikovky and how it can be proved ? if true, why there is are no researches and registers ???..

  • i also expected tchaikovskys voice to be deeper like a bass or a baritone.

  • i've a audio editor

    soon i'll upload this with a better version od this!

  • It sounds like they were yelling into the recorder. Did Tchaikovsky speak English?

  • @Mufaso1000 It was necessary to produce loud tones to register...

  • @Randidan : Good answer!

  • @Mufaso1000 I'm often amazed at many of the artists from the early days - Patti, for instance, shows no signs of having to be forceful, even though her age had restricted her abilities! No wonder she thought she could try 'heavy' roles...

  • to russian speakers: any translation would be very, very appreciated!

  • Sounds like a couple of creepy truckers on a CB

  • Fascinating. Not what I would have expected Tchaikovsky to sound like ...

  • @Zoidberg227

    Yeah. There is footage with Rachmaninoff floating around, too. I imagined his (as well as Tchaikovsky's) voice to be a lot deeper.

  • I WANT TO HEAR TCHAIKOVSKY PLAYING !!!!

  • Well, I listened a couple of times but do not know who is who that's speaking. It'd be nice if the video would separate and identify each. Interesting though.

  • @goldie0800 The creator of this video has made it simple to know what's up. Look at the pictures; they're not arbitrary. The image of Tchaikovsky appears each time he speaks.

  • @TheStockwell - Oh ok, thanks for clearing this question. ;- )

  • @goldie0800 I was baffled, too. I don't speak Russian. Then I noticed a pattern. I felt REALLY smart when I figured out!

  • @goldie0800

    Or read the video description...

  • I was looking for a recording of him for like 2 yrs now, Thank you damn so much :D

  • can someone translate

  • this whistle, composed the nutcracker suite...

  • lol, sounds like something John Lennon should have put in his "Revolution 9".

  • so old people were crazy ?

  • Like most conductors Tchaikovsky loves to make a grotesque noise singing sharp and unable to retain the tonic whilst demonstrating to the eager pupil.

  • @Alexknobsob Or is that Rubinstein singing?

  • This is absolutely miraculous! To hear Tchaikovsky speak? It sends a chill down my spine! (And I rarely use exclamation points!!!) I don't understand why anyone would fake this. YouTube can be a cynical lot. Jesus, I feel haunted. Fabulious and thanks so much!

  • Anton Rubinstein said one word: "nyet" when asked to record something. I wish he had recorded a few bars of his Melody in F. Tchaikovsky is the whistler. He was said to have a pleasant voice but here his spoken voice is a bit squeeky perhaps owing to the exigencies of the recording and/or the large quantities of vodka they had all perhaps consumed. This recording [and the other Block recordings] existed all along and were never "lost". Incredibly, they survived war and revolution!

  • A fascinating piece of recording incunabula!

    (Though why they included the cuckoo clock is a bit mysterious....)

  • Wow how old is he here 5 ?

  • Comment removed

  • @EMPERORMIKI indeed Tchaikovsky sounds childish here Oo

  • @BassicStorm If we took a microscope and carefully focused on and checked out your comment, we would beneath the shoe of the great genius an obscure difficult to define non entity in terms of a microscopic flake of dog shit swimming in a tiny pus pustule known as emperormiki. SCHMUCK!!!!

  • @EMPERORMIKI why do jerkoffs like you even exist--are you here to further demonstrate what a fucking moron you are? be honest, squeeze that pimple boy--how old are you? 5? SCHMUCK

  • @sideroadgold drink a bit more and i'll tell you.

  • If this is genuine, Russians were fucking creepy in the late 1800s.

  • @Schneider10101

    Schneider if you want to see creepy look in the mirror as you read what you wrote. You're a snot nosed adolescent who is definitely fucking creepy in 2010.What we heard is alot clearer than the snot and piss in your brain--SCHMUCK!!!!

  • @sideroadgold

    you are a couple of incoherent wankers

  • Wow - quite amazing if true. Somehow...I have my doubts but who am I to say:) I hope it's true.

  • if this is true this recording is an unvaluable treasure that should be kept under key guarded by armored men for listening to one of the greatest composers of all times and my 3rd favorite alone with Haendel(after Mozart and Beethoven), would give me an strange sensation that this is out of this world, it´s simply extraordinarily AMAZING, hope this is true!!!!

  • @beethomozart This is now preserved at Pushkin House at St.Petersburg, Russia. Same as for the Brahms recording, it is proved that these recordings are authentic.

  • @transformingArt well I believe you and I repeat this is a golden unvaluable treasure, this is the most incredible thing that I´ve listened in my life Tchaicovsky´s and Brahms´voices, it´s just INCREDIBLE AND MIRACULOUS

  • @transformingArt

    edisons wasnt the first voice recorder, though it was so much better than Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's from 1860

  • @beethomozart Did you mean invaluable? Unvaluable isn't even in the dictionary! And why wouldn't be real.If it were not real I think a person would be able to understand what is being said better.That is what I think anyway.

  • @Gail419 yes, you´re rigth, I wrote it too fast

  • @beethomozart imagine if you could listen to Mozart's voice

  • @alexei6003 imagine listening to Mozart's performance of his piano concerto no.20 or 21, back in 1785...

  • s'ppose it was such a novelty, then.

  • YIKES!! That reminds me of my sister and me playing with a tape recorder when we were kids! =O

  • This takes my breath away. How magical to hear these wonderful voices. Thank you. Maya

  • Sounds like girls!

  • I tried to buy this (limited edition!) collection and failed.

    Thank you for posting this.

  • Возможно, это не Чайковский. Чайковский не выговаривал букву Р, но на этой записи мы слышим что он четко выговаривает ее.

    -----

    Perhaps this is not Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky had not uttered the letter R, but on this record, we hear that he clearly articulates it.

  • @ser88749741 Ya ne snayu nu ya dumayu chto da. Nu vabshye, kto znayet?

  • This is absolutely stunning! Thank you.

  • Can anyone make out the words, or how they translate?

  • astounding, who knows what other treasures are out there collecting dust! has anyone ever heard the myth of the Liszt recording? the first phonograph was created by Edison around 1877, though it seems that the technology was there a few years before by other inventors, Liszt died in 1886 in germany. edison recorded brahms in 1889,where i'm not sure.. but the possibility is there, just what if Liszt had recorded an "album"!!!!!

  • The voice of Tchaikowsky ?! If it is reall, thank you very much !

  • incredible!

  • is that real? Tchaikovsky singing!? haha..funny

  • Maybe there are some more phonogramms with the voice of Piotr Iljich Tchikowsky? Hearing His voice and the very intonations of his voice, I believe we all are a bit worth than people who lived in Thaikowski's time. Thaikowski's contemporaries where more frank, more kind and warm-hearted than whe are.

    Russians love Tchaikowsky for kindness, sincerity and benevolence of His heart and soul.

  • ,,Эта трель могла бы быть и получше!"П.И.Чайковский.

    ...Противный дядя Земеля,как ты смеешь называть меня товарной..."

    Анна К.

    итд

  • КАЛИНИНУ МИХАИЛУ ИВАНОВИЧУ!

  • Comment removed

  • Some things never change I suppose.

    1890's Ventrillo, anyone?

  • *gasp* Tchiakovsky!! ahhh!!! he is one of the most brilliant people ever (and im saying "is" because he still lives on as a legend)

  • Chekov could have turned this scene of a room full of renowned Artistes making a recording into an interesting one of his short stories, or made a short play of it.

  • Oh my, my heart was in my throat when I came across this. I've actually heard the voice of my all-time musical hero Tchaikovsky! What a character! And Rubinstein, how I wish we could've heard you play!

  • I speak Russian--the translation is correct. This is incredible.

  • Emouvant !

  • When I hear it with the text added, after clicking on more info it makes real sense and I am actually convinced.

    I think it is great!!!

  • A lot of music is recorded on pianolas which are much older than the Edison cylinder. They were quite sensitive and give a good impression of composers playing their music!

    As of this cilinder: why was it not a man from the market who shouts in the cylinder. I can't tell if it is the Csar or a fisherman.

    I HOPE it is authentic: we need some extra info about this particular cylinder for that.

  • Mrcultureux: R u saying made up by Commies? It is too good to be true that Tchai has a veeery gay voice and that he whistles one of his grand themes????

  • Ah, thank you for posting this wonderful and interesting collection!

  • Guau!! La primera vez que oigo la voz de Tchaikovsky....Muchas gracias por postearlo!!

  • Me lo imaginaba mas grave jejje

  • Thank you. It is wonderful to hear the voice of Anton Rubinstein that my grandfather heard back in his day in Poland at his home.

  • wow. i cant beleiev they actually have a recording of tchai speaking!its just amazing. just imagine if they ahd one of chopin!

  • What I don't understand is how this lack of continuity of the recording proves it to be FAKE? Maybe they interrupted it after every phrase, just to save the cylinder, which must have been quite expensive at that time...

  • This is amazing.

    Now if only we had a recording of Rubinstein's playing...

  • That recording is of Brahms playing a snippit of his Hungarian dance #1. Most scholars agree it is not Brahms himself speaking but the announcer saying:

    house of Herr Doctor Fellinger, I have Dr. Brahms,Johannes Brahms.

    Still I'd rather have Brahms playing piano than talking.

  • kerl **/-kstifewr marksi

  • Translation >> A. Rubinstein: What a wonderful thing [the phonograph].

    J. Block: Finally.

    E. Lawrowskaja: A disgusting...how he dares slyly to name me.

    W. Safonov : (Sings a scale incorrectly).

    P. Tchaikovsky: This trill could be better.

    E. Lawrowskaja: (sings).

    P. Tchaikovsky: Block is good, but Edison is even better.

    E. Lawrowskaja: (sings) A-o, a-o.

    W. Safonow: (In German) Peter Jurgenson in Moskau.

    P. Tchaikovsky: Who just spoke? It seems to have been Safonow. (Whistles)

  • Coming from their point of view since there was never anything to record sound to that point, they were probably awestruck. I would have been playing with it too. Too bad Tchaikovsky

    died in 1893 before he could see recorded music take off. Thanks for sharing!

  • They were anything but awestruck.

    They regarded it as a joke, as can be heard.

    A pity they didn't take it seriously.

    We might have a Rubinstein recording.

  • how van anyone possibly know whether it's genuine???

  • I don't know, for some strange reason, I couldn't imagine that giants like them would be playing with a phonograph like a bunch of ten year olds! And I thought that Tchaikovsky's voice would be deeper. His comment "Block is good, BUT EDISON IS EVEN BETTER!" cracked me up! xD

    Seeing them act like normal folk is... I don't know, for some reason it's amazing and incredible. I mean, really, it's Tchaikovsky! It's Rubinstein! xD

  • @arcturian627 Yeah, I thought Tchaikovsky's voice would be a lot deeper. Pleasant surprise XD

  • @arcturian627

    edison's phoneautograph was so amazingly better than Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville's from 1860

  • @arcturian627 lol -- new tech toys seem to make children of us all, n'est-ce pas?

  • Am I the only person who found this very amusing? I quite like the idea of Tchaikovsky and his buddies buying a phonograph and proceeding to play around with it like a bunch of ten-year-olds with a tape recorder.

    "block is good, BUT EDISON IS EVEN BETTER!!" lol

  • This discovery is similar to an extremely rare recording of (allegedly) Chopin playing his minute Waltz on a cylinder that was 'unearthed' in Italy. Was rumored to be a hoax but stirred up an out-pouring of interest from callers to the CBC Radio show that presented it.

  • RYTHMMAKER: I don't mean to be rude, but Chopin died in 1849, and the first known sound recording wasn't made until 1853, by Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville.

    His paper phonautogram recordings were very primitive even compared with the wax cylinder, and he was only interested in 'seeing' the physical manifestation of recorded sound, not in playing it back, so the recordings couldn't be heard (until recently).

  • But perhaps some previously undiscovered inventor did manage to record sound even before Scott. Who knows? It's a nice thought, and not really so unbelievable, when you think about what sound really is.

    I mean, there's a video somewhere on here showing a man in the process of creating a chocolate record. A RECORD made out of CHOCOLATE - edible music!

    I'm rambling, but I think what I'm trying to say is that it would've been truly amazing to hear Chopin play. Just fantastic.

  • Chopin died in 1849

  • There are translated transcripts of this cylinder circulating that has the lady speaking about midway through imploring Rubinstein to play something for them. His answer is the Nein! that is heard. Drives me absolutely insane to hear the great man's voice and YET not to be able to hear even one tone come from those massive velvet paws!!

  • OMG this is extremely rare

  • more importantly, the media player would be outmoded. consider that that in the past 30 years alone, we have witnessed 8 track, tape cassette, Beta, VHS, Laserdisc, and even the venerable LP disappear. Everyone seemed to own a cassette Walkman 25 year ago, but most people dont even know what that is now. Already, Flash memory and internet downloading is foreboding the possible end of the cd media.

  • And thus, with downloads and flash memory cards containing whole albums, the quality of recorded media takes its biggest step downhill ever.

    Such a shame, we strive so hard for HD TV, and people whine and complain when video game graphics arent the best ever, but they care not one bit how compressed and destroyed their music is. :(

  • and every now and again that rumor of a liszt cylinder resurfasses... he may well have made one...

    if only

    if only

    if only

  • if Beethoven had lived for another 15 years we could have seen him in picture.

  • Like Brahms, Tchaikovsky had to raise his voice to be heard so we have barely a sense of what he sounded like in conversation. Still, it's great that we have voice samples of at least two of the giants from that day. Here, we have more than one sample of Tchaikovsky's voice from when Symphonies 5 & 6 and the Nutcracker were still to come.

  • It's too bad they did't get liszt's voice on there.

  • Liszt died in 1886.

  • Comment removed

  • Is this really for real? If it is, it's fantastic!

  • if these people were all in the same room, why do we hear "who just spoke?" Could this have been a very early conference call?

  • They would lay a track with a few winds, rewind and hear what was said then continue with another one. much like a home tape recording.

  • Rubinstein got all of one line? :(

    That's one more line than I ever expected to hear though. If only he'd played a few measures. But amazing nonetheless, I never would have imagined this existed.

  • That is a crime --that Anton Rubinstein was in the same room with a phonograph and no recording of his playing was made.

    What a tragedy.

  • Comment removed

  • @marcxopoco

    The selection of Block cylinders found so far are not a "complete set" - there could well be more anywhere in the world. Rubenstein might yet be discovered.....

  • Excellent! I have another cylander of them playing poker!

  • post!

  • Wow!

  • LMFAO at 0:24! XD

  • lololol

  • Late at night, I am browsing YT channels, what do I find? A 119 yr old cylinder with Tchaikovsky goofing off and whistling! Amazing!

  • @elzuzo267

    That's exactly what I said! I love this! :D

  • A. Rubinstein: What a wonderful thing [the phonograph].

    J. Block: Finally.

    E. Lawrowskaja: A disgusting...how he dares slyly to name me.

    N.N: (Sings a scale incorrectly).

    P. Tchaikovsky: This trill could be better.

    E. Lawrowskaja: (sings).

  • Comment removed

  • This can't be real

  • It is most definitely real. It's not a new discovery, and indeed some of these excerpts have been included on CD re-issues of very old performances of music by Rubinstein and/or Tchaikovsky. I first heard them a long time ago.

    Very amazing stuff. Not a new discovery, but I was waiting for someone to put it on YouTube!

  • that is amazing..

    Tchiakovsky!..who'd have thought we'd find a recording by Tchiakovsky!

  • Such a shame Rubinstein didn't play anything :( I'd die to hear him on the piano.

  • Yes, it is a pity! This is like having a recording of Liszt hailing the phonograph without having him play anything. Almost.

  • ridiculously awesome!

  • Rubinstein, Lawrowskaja, Tschaikowski, Safonof, Hubert etc.

    Лавровская - "Противный ты зверь(?)! Как он смеет называть меня коварной".

  • далее женщины упрашивают: "Антон Григорьевич, ну сыграйте пожалуйста", а он в ответ что-то там бухтит, но вроде обещает потом...

  • Comment removed

  • - Рубинштейн: "это дивная вещь"..

    -голос "наконец-то"

    -мужской голос поет

    -Чайковский "эта трель могля бы быть лучше

    Лавровская рапевается

  • жаль запись неполная.

    возглас достаточно высокого мужского голоса после свободной импровизации с руладами женского сопрано: "Эта трель могла бы быть лучше!", а затем после еще нескольких рулад, спетых тем же женским голосом -

  • if only i could here chopin.

  • This is almost to be in Russian in 1890, looking at them with this machine in front of them...

    amazing

  • As I understood it it was recorded at a dinner party and Rubenstein said nothing. But I may be wrong.

  • so interesting, amazing and incredible!!!

  • I am so glad to hear that these were preserved!

  • This is remarkable!! I never knew that such a recording existed! It is posterity's loss that Rubinstein did not play the piano for this machine, but it is fascinating to hear the voices of Rubinstein and Tchaikowsky. It makes them seem more real, more human and mortal, in contrast to their immortal contributions to music. Oh, that we could have a recording of Liszt playing the piano!!!

  • This is stunning! I knew Brahms had been recorded playing the piano but not Tchaikowsky's voice!

    Bravo and thanks for uploading this!