+44 (0)114 240 2214

Blog

By the Suwanee River – another new Concert Cylinder Record is available from the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company


The latest in Vulcan’s Concert Cylinder catalogue, By the Suwanee River is a lively, descriptive selection written by W. H. Myddleton.

Myddleton is an interesting character.  A British composer, his full name was George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton, who also composed professionally as Arnold Safroni (1873 – 1950).  As Safroni, his most well known piece is Imperial Echoes, written in 1913, which, adapted as a military march, was used extensively by the BBC during World War II.

The Suwanee River is a major river of southern Georgia and northern Florida.  This is the correct spelling, though Suwannee (with a double ‘n’) and Swanee have both been used over the years.  Notably, Steven Foster mis-spelled it when he wrote Old Folks at Home.

Order Here

Vulcan Cylinder Record Company releases three new cylinders


Something old, something new, nothing borrowed, something blue!  This sums up our latest three creations.

Something Old is I Tiddly I Ti – cornet and piano duet.

A remarkable recording from the earliest years of the cylinder record industry in England. I Tiddly I Ti is a jaunty number, and the musical content has a clarity not often heard in records of this vintage.

You can find details of this record on our list of Brown Wax Releases.

Something New is Too Much Mustard – accordion solo.

Originally written in 1912, this version was recorded by accordion virtuoso, Matt Tolentino, in 2012. The tune was originally popularised by the American dancing duo, Vernon and Irene Castle.  Mr Tolentino’s arrangement of this piece reflects the energetic dancing style of the era.

This recording is in the Popular Series.

Something Blue is Teapot Dome Blues – by the Georgia Melodians

Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the “greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics”. This was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1920 to 1923, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding.

Secretary of the Interior Albert B Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh.  Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies.  And what has all that got to do with the music?  We don’t know, but it is a great tune!

You will find this title in the Red Star section of the Catalogue.

Hiawatha, another new Replica Pink Lambert cylinder, is now available from the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company


The Vulcan Cylinder Record Company is pleased to announce the release of their second Replica Pink Lambert cylinder.  Hiawatha, sometimes referred to as A Summer Idyll was written by Charles N. Daniels, under the pseudonym of Neil Moret, in 1901.

The version Vulcan offers here has been transferred from a Lambert Concert cylinder, number 5090,  played by the American Parlour Orchestra.  It was first released in 1902.

An interesting note about this recording is that the introduction is spoken by a woman – a very unusual happening in those days!

The song was released just at a time when there was an increasing demand for material about the American Indian, and for music in the intermezzo style.

In 1902, the Whitney-Warner Publishing Company of Detroit paid Daniel’s $10,000 for the rights to the tune and engaged lyricist James O’Dea to add an appropriate and evocative text to it.

To listen to a section of the recording, please visit our Catalogue page.  If you would like to buy a copy of this recording, please go to the Order page.

Vulcan Cylinder Record Company released two new titles today:


The Stars and Stripes Forever March, by John Philip Souza; and Rain, by Eugene Ford.

The Vulcan Cylinder Record Company is pleased to announce the release of two new cylinder records today, made in their modern, hard wearing, plastic resin material, and playable on all original 2-minute cylinder machines.

The Stars and Stripes Forever March has been available from Vulcan on Concert format for some time.  Now the company has decided to make this popular title available to all those other collectors who don’t have Concert-size players.  It is a tune that requires little introduction, especially in America where it is the official National March.

Vulcan Records would like to introduce the newest of their artistes – Mr Matt Tolentino.  Matt is a very fine accordion player, and has his own band/orchestra to back him.  This, the first of Matt’s recordings we will release, is a Eugene Ford piece called Rain.  This is a very lovely foxtrot, with vocal refrain, and we think Matt’s rendition of it is very good.

A new version of Tin Roof Blues, recorded acoustically to wax cylinder in 2008, by Vulcan Cylinder Records.


The Vulcan Cylinder Record Company has released a new arrangement of that old favourite of the New Orleans Jazz genre – Tin Roof Blues.  Written in 1928 by members of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, this is one of the best known, and most often played, of the genre.

This tune was recorded acoustically, directly to wax cylinder, at the 2008 annual conference of the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society (CLPGS).  Duncan Miller, of Vulcan Records, is probably the world’s leading exponent of live acoustic recording in the wax medium, and this lively number is one more tribute to his knowledge and skill in this area.

Here is the first in what we hope will be many classical titles in our catalogue – Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2


We think that this rendition of the well-known and very popular Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, recorded here by the Edison Concert Band in 1905, is a record worthy of addition to the collection of any lover of classical music.

One of a set of 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies composed by Liszt, this was written as a piano solo but proved so popular that he also wrote it as an orchestral score and a piano duet.

This is a spirited piece no matter how it is played.  The limited playing time of the 2-minute cylinder has imposed dramatic cuts giving a more than usually dramatic tempo.

Nevertheless, the Edison Company was proud enough to state: “This record will be a delight to those who are constantly seeking high class music.”