Students of Otto von Bismarck, whose titanic personality and political genius were largely responsible for creating the modern German state in the 19th century, were surely thrilled last week to learn that the only known recording of Bismarck’s voice has been identified among a trove of wax cylinders in the laboratory of Thomas Edison, one of the pioneers of recorded sound.
If you’d like to hear an excerpt of the first Chancellor of the German Empire reciting bits of poetry in several languages — including a few taunting lines of the Marseillaise, the French national anthem — go to the New York Times website and do a search on “Bismarck.” The story, published on January 30th, is titled “Restored Edison Records Revive Giants of 19th Century Germany,” and has links not only to the Bismarck recording, but also to several other recently restored gems from the same year.
Be forewarned: the sound quality of wax cylinders is not very good. Bismarck, who manages in the span of just over a minute to speak in English, German, Latin, and French, is a small voice in a storm of pulsing static. But just as Neil Armstrong’s famous transmission from the surface of the moon was made all the more magical by his crackling radio, these early Edison recordings seem to speak from a remoteness beyond time and space. Yes, the recording is horrible, but that’s Bismarck!
The fascination with recovering lost voices is a kind of fetish, but a charming one. By that I mean that we attach an absurd amount of importance to a minor feature; in this case, a minute or two of a faint voice hamming it up for a microphone. Then again, who wouldn’t rather hear from the Chancellor himself, even if it’s only a few words of light-hearted advice, than read countless dry dispatches from his days as a diplomat?
Alas, it’s human nature to prefer the material to the abstract. We’re totemic creatures. We like tangible links to our heroes: autographs, pictures, a bit of clothing. We imbue these objects with mystical power and enshrine them in museums, places where we can gather to feel close to the giants of the past.
But the truth is that these giants are with us all the time in our daily lives. In every novel, symphony, and hymn, there’s a sleeping authorial voice that’s brought to life in the act of reading, hearing, or singing. Perhaps we don’t hear Melville’s speaking voice, or Beethoven’s playing, but we get something infinitely more powerful: a collision with their ideas; the impact of their imagination upon our own; a communion of souls.
Does it really matter, for instance, that we don’t have a recording of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address? By all accounts, Lincoln’s speaking voice was unnaturally high and somewhat squeaky. His contemporaries certainly enjoyed making fun of it. What is there to learn from that brilliant speech that can’t be gleaned by reading it, or hearing it recited by someone filled with its magisterial spirit?
To take it one step further: what if we could hear a recording of, say, Jesus delivering his Sermon on the Mount? Or Moses, announcing the Ten Commandments? Or Mohammed, revealing the Koran? Assuming, of course, that we could perfectly understand their ancient tongues.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate? The living word, straight from the prophets’ mouths! No mortal transcribers, no interfering human institutions, just pure divine wisdom.
It’s a heretical fantasy, and a painful one, too, filled with regret. Scroll-making was the hot new technology back then; why couldn’t those earth-shattering revelations have happened in the era of microphones and audio files?
I wonder, though, whether even those recordings — the Greatest Hits of Monotheism! — despite the awe they’d no doubt inspire, might still prove disappointing.
After all, what matters most is the message, not the man.
And sometimes, not even the message. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln says, without any hint of irony or false modesty, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they [the soldiers who died at Gettysburg] did here.”
Here’s one of the great American writers delivering one of the great American speeches, making the case that writing and speaking don’t really matter! Deeds are what matter. Deeds, and ideas.
Unfortunately, we live in an era of materialism, not idealism. Democracy, once a great ideal, seems to have become yet another commodity to be bought and sold.
I like buying things. I like the feeling of power it gives me. But here’s a question. Who’s closer to Abraham Lincoln: the billionaire who owns a rare copy of the Gettysburg Address; or the student who pores over those hallowed words, and by doing so, feels the great man whisper in his ear?
This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 09 February 2012
For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com
