美国国家公共电台 NPR--This man's recordings spent years under a recliner — they've now found a new home

This man's recordings² spent years under a recliner — they've now found a new home

Transcript³

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Lionel Mapleson, then the librarian at New York's Metropolitan⁴ Opera, did something new: He took an Edison "Home" model phonograph and recorded operas with an orchestra as they were being sung on stage.

He experimented with recording¹ from places like the prompter's booth, but finally landed on the catwalks high above the stage. Microphones weren't invented yet, so he used a giant horn, perhaps six feet long, to record acoustically⁵.

"The Mapleson Cylinders⁷, at least in terms of sound recording, are definitely among the most important sound documents of the 20th century," said Bob Kosovsky, a librarian in the music division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and an expert on early opera recordings.

"It recorded live performances at a time when people didn't think it was possible," he said.

In other words — these are some of the first live recordings of music ever.

Mapleson recorded hundreds of cylinders, of operas but also of his family. Many are lost, perhaps forever. But the New York Public Library had 126 of them until last fall — all the known cylinders except for the 16 in possession of the Mapleson family. The library borrowed those in 1981 to transfer them as best they could and they put the collection on LPs; the result is hissy, scratchy — the music rises up like a ghost underneath⁸ a wall of static.

But then, last spring, the library bought an Endpoint Cylinder⁶ and Dictabelt Machine, invented by Nicholas Bergh. NPR's story in April last year focused on how the machine worked, saying that it could digitize even broken cylinders with more clarity. And it mentioned how the library was excited to try to re-digitize the Mapleson Cylinders it owned to see if they could make them less noisy.

"So my brother, Peter, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, came across the story and he says, 'Oh, did you see this?'" said Alfred Mapleson, the great-grandson of Lionel. "And when I saw it was like, 'Oh, that's great. That means they probably can read the read these broken cylinders as well, which is great, is phenomenal.'"

He reached out to the library to donate them on behalf of the Mapleson family.

"And both Bob and I had just about fell out of our chairs with excitement, it was the best news we had gotten in 10 years," said Jessica Wood, assistant curator in the New York Public Library's music division.

A long family history

Mapleson's family had owned Mapleson Music since the 1700s, Alfred Mapleson said, a company which rented out its own opera orchestrations. They kept the cylinders as part of the business, but when it was sold to Educational Music Service in the 1990s, they kept the more personal things with the family — like the cylinders, which for quite a while were being kept in a beer cooler under Alfred's mother's recliner on Long Island.

But then Alfred moved them to his own house, along with Lionel's journals — about 50 of them. They're more like scrapbooks, really, with photographs and news clippings pasted in, along with thoughts about both Lionel's daily life and the big news of the day — like the sinking of the Titanic⁹ (he sailed on a boat to England with some who had survived), or the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake (the Met was there on tour).

He also, said Wood, recorded "the day when Arturo Toscanini and Puccini came to his hotel room in the evening because they decided¹⁰ that act one of the opera Manon needed to be re-orchestrated."

The journals accompanied the cylinders to the library (details of how everything was packed up are here in an NYPL blog post by Wood.)

The librarians have been through about 20 of the journals so far, and there's not a lot about the recordings, though Kosovsky said it's clear that a lot of them were captured, not for posterity¹¹, but so his friends could hear themselves sing; many of them would never have heard their recorded voices otherwise. Yet what is there is rich, with detailed¹² information about life in England and New York a century ago.

Alfred Mapleson himself has two sons — but he thought it was important that these journals, these cylinders, be available for others to use for research, so that his family legacy¹³ could live on.

"All I can say is I really hope I've done my family proud," he said. "You know, if Lionel could see this, or or my grandfather, or my dad, they'd be like, OK, you're doing right by by the family. That we all did what was right to perpetuate¹⁴ the Mapleson name and for history. And that's what's most important to me."

1 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

2 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

3 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

4 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

5 acoustically   

听觉上，声学上

参考例句：

• The hall is excellent acoustically. 这个大厅在传音方面极好。
• Moos Acoustically speaking, what happens before and after mating is most interesting. 默丝从象的叫声判断，交配前后发生的事情最有意思。

6 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。

7 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

9 titanic   

adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的

参考例句：

• We have been making titanic effort to achieve our purpose.我们一直在作极大的努力，以达到我们的目的。
• The island was created by titanic powers and they are still at work today.台湾岛是由一个至今仍然在运作的巨大力量塑造出来的。

10 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

11 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

14 perpetuate   

v.使永存，使永记不忘

参考例句：

• This monument was built to perpetuate the memory of the national hero.这个纪念碑建造的意义在于纪念民族英雄永垂不朽。
• We must perpetuate the system.我们必须将此制度永久保持。