最初の録音・最早的錄音

The oldest sounds in the catalogue, from wax cylinders and early discs, in roughly the order they were made. A German sinologist's cylinder from the late 1800s preserves a chanted reading of Tao Yuanming's 'Returning Home', a rare trace of how classical poetry was voiced.

In Shanghai in 1901 the anthropologist Berthold Laufer recorded a troupe of actresses on two phonographs at once, one for the singers and one for the band. The paired cylinders have since been synchronised into an accidental early stereo recording. From 1902–03 come Edison's 'Records in Chinese', made in San Francisco, and a Chinese ensemble from the Library of Congress's National Jukebox. Japan enters with Kappore on an Edison cylinder and a naniwabushi reciter of about 1906. Then come the first great voices of Peking opera on disc: Sun Juxian in 1905 and 1908, Tan Xinpei, and the young Ma Lianliang in 1922.

The set closes with the gagaku prelude 'Taishikichō chōshi' from 1941. These recordings ask for patient ears: noise, speed wobble and worn grooves are part of them.