DESCRIPTION:
(*Note : Be sure to hear this with 480P settings and a pair of functioning stereo speakers or ear/headphones!)

My first video after some 15 months of inactivity - my sincere apologies for all the people who were eager to see new videos on this channel, but some personal issues and all those non-sense copyright notices from YouTube made me hesitate for a long time. In the meantime, I tried a lot of new technical experiments on transferring and making digital audio files from my collection of 78s, which I do some sort of premiere on this video.

Anyway, here's one of more "valuable" records I have in my humble collection. The great Irish writer, James Joyce (1882.2.2 ~ 1941.1.13.) reads an excerpt of "Anna Livia Plurabelle" episode from his book, "Finnegans Wake". Recorded on September 5th, 1929, by the request from the linguist C. K. Ogden and his Orthological Institute at Cambridge.

I know this recording has been on YouTube countless times, but since I have the original 78rpm record in my possession which sounds vastly superior to all the other soundfiles I've encountered online, I decided to give my own shot in here.

The recording was done with the help by the famous bookseller/publisher and personal friend of Joyce's, Sylvia Beach (of Shakespeare & Co. fame). According to Beach, who wrote the detailed account of the experience, Ogden, the inventor of "Simple English" (an international language of 850 words in which, he claimed, everything could be said), wanted to preserve voices of famous writers of his time for posterity as well as for studying on complexity of English language. He had already recorded several recordings with George Bernard Shaw, another advocate of "Simple English" concept. He boasted of his two big recording machines in which he installed in a studio at Cambridge, and invited Joyce and Beach to his recording studio.

Although Joyce was no stranger in a recording studio (he had recorded an excerpt from "Ulysses" in 1924 at Paris HMV studio) and certainly wasn't that enthusiastic about making yet another record of his voice, Ogden convinced Joyce that the "Ulysses" recording was badly recorded (i.e. primitive acoustic record) and not suitable for posterity, therefore he need to make a "real recording".

During his visit to the recording studio, Joyce was heavily suffering from his eye problems (mainly cataracts, in which he was operated two days after the recording), so Ogden made the text of "Anna Livia Plurabelle" produced in half-inch letters on large sheets to make it easier for Joyce to read. Even so, the light in the recording studio was not enough for Joyce to see even half-inch letters, he was at times prompted in a whisper during the recording. Joyce eventually recorded two takes of "Anna Livia Plurabelle", of which take two of each sides, (matrix # Cc-17594/17595-2) was eventually pressed and published by HMV. The record, a 12-inch double sided record bearing "Linguaphone" label, was sold by the Orthological Institute for 2 guineas (£2.2s), a large amount of money at the time. After the first batch of 800 copies sold out within a year, the master was worn out, and the second batch of pressings were made out of secondary masters (matrix # Cc-17594/17595-2-T1) dubbed from one of the original pressings, which is the present copy I have in my collection. To his credit, Ogden demaded half of the original price for these second batch of pressings, citing the reason, "....in the interests of the wider public, which is loath to part with more than 21 shillings even for a double-sided twelve-inch disc." The obvious reason why this record is way much more common than the original Linguaphone pressings, which fetch up hundreds of dollars in the collectors' market.

Sylvia Beach wrote about the recording ; "How beautiful the "Anna Livia" recording is, and how amusing Joyce's rendering of an Irish washerwoman's brogue!" Well said indeed.

This record was transferred to the digital format with my new Audio Technica ATLP-120 turntable with Shure M78S cartridge with custom-made 3.5 mil stylus. I have done the denoising and declicking manually by myself, and adjusted the EQ using few computer programs. The slightly metallic sonic characteristics and few blasting spots at the beginning of each sides is present on the original recording, the aural evidences of below-the-standard dubbing process which wasn't completely mastered by the HMV technicians of the day. I tried to reduce these blemishes as much as possible. Also I applied 10 miliseconds of delay on the right channel, for creating some kind of "stereo" like aural impression.

Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.