(Very Rare!) Sir Henry Irving's Recitation from Richard III (1898)

Since I uploaded the Florence Nightingale recording on my channel, I've received hundreds of requests from YT viewers asking about to upload more 'historical recordings'. So I'm uploading some of them here right now.

One of the greatest British Shakespeare Actor of the 19th century and the founder of the Drury Lane Theater, Sir Henry Irving (1838.2.6 ~ 1905.10.13) recites the famous lines of Shakespeare's Richard III ("Now is the Winter of our discontent....."). Recorded on a Edison Brown Wax cylinder at Little Menlo, on May 9th, 1898. The cylinder is very worn out, so it's barely audible, but it is still great historical document to hear the master from two centuries ago. There is a dubbing of this recording made for BBC in 1930s which is much clearer than today's transfer, but it only holds 30 seconds of the recording.

On hearing himself for the first time Irvings reaction was : My God! Is that my voice? He later wrote an enthusiastic account of the day to Ellen Terry who was in Berlin at that time: You speak into it and everything is recorded, voice, tone, intonation, everything. You turn a little wheel, and forth it comes, and can be repeated ten thousand times. Only fancy what this suggests. Wouldnt you like to have heard the voice of Shakespeare, or Jesus Christ?

Actually, there is another cylinder of Irving's voice, but since the authenticity of that recording is in dispute, I wouldn't put that recording in the video.

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• Very
• Rare
• Historical
• Voices
• Sir
• Henry
• Irving
• Richard
• III
• 1890
• 1898
• Shakespeare
• Now
• is
• the
• winter
• of
• our
• discontent
• Edison
• Cylinder
• Recording
• Little
• Menlo

[valdengo1]

..First heard this 35 years ago, the local library had the recording, along with others....

[Aeschylus]

Lady Glossop: "Sir Roderick and I saw Irving play Hamlet at the Lyceum."

Bertie Wooster: "Oh really, who won?"

[LordGuinness]

this is brilliant but creepy as well...more than a 100 years old

[LuxGonderange]

toll so eine aufnahme zu hören

[paksierra]

richard III and wolseys speech ive heard many times,i actually heard he recorded it in 1896.i believe the henry vIII speech is authentic...did henry irving ever do any others? ive heard rumors there was one more he did.bransby williams also did a superb imitation of irving in ' the bells' one of irvings great parts its on the great historical shakespeare recordings cd...

[HalooftheMuse]

A priceless gift from another time and era now gone, forever...

[dxjohncenacaz]

Subscribed!

PLEASE do mor!!!e

[karlsalz]

I can not understand exactly what he says

[ipmoic]

Very stentorian and slow.

I like that he does not hurry so that the depth of thought can penetrate new ears who may be first-time theatre-goers

[lincliff1]

i did not expect such depth