A Programme of Records from the earliest days

In January, 1877, Thomas Edison was granted the first patent for a machine capable of reproducing sounds. This was the original Edison phonograph; a piece of mechanism that looks - and sounds - absurdly crude to people accustomed to the elegance and fine quality of modern gramophones. His first improvement was the substitution of a waxed cylinder for the original tinfoil; then came the invention of the gramophone in which the cylinder, on which the sound records were cut, was replaced by a flat disc. After this, progress was rapid, and every year sees further quality of recording and reproduction. In tonight's broadcast, the course of 'talking-machine' history will be traced from the earliest phonograph cylinders up to gramophone records of the present day.