Music recorded in December 1897
In December 1897, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Greece signed the Treaty of Constantinople, institutionalizing the end of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. In Japan, the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Japan and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was revised on December 5th, as part of a trend toward revising unequal treaties. On December 12th, the Kame-Hakodate Horse-Drawn Railway opened between Bentencho and Higashikawacho in Hokkaido, furthering the modernization of urban transportation. In medicine, Shiga Kiyoshi (1871–1957) published a report on his research on Shigella on December 25th, marking advances in bacteriology. In Paris, the play Cyrano de Bergerac premiered on December 28th, drawing attention from the performing arts community. In the Philippines, the Biak-na-Bato Agreement was announced that same month, providing a temporary ceasefire and granting exile to revolutionary forces. In the same month, the Russian Empire advanced into Port Arthur and Dalian in northeastern China, increasing tensions between the great powers.
Confirmed recordings this month: 0
Summary of information on recordings made in December 1897
In many cases, public databases only give the year "1897" for individual recordings made in December 1897, and there are no documents available for individual recordings for which the December and month can be determined. Therefore, this section summarizes holdings information for cylinder and disc recordings made as of the end of 1897 with confirmed years, as well as the technological and business trends that supported commercial recording at the time.
Alexandria Cylinder (annual grants including 1897)
The Cylinder Audio Archive at the Alexandria Digital Research Library, published by the University of California, Santa Barbara, provides a collection of audio sources that can be searched for with an issue date of 1897 (or a range including 1897). The content spans solo, instrumental, and band pieces, and provides a yearly overview of the cylinder audio sources that were in circulation as of the end of 1897 (or were created around the same time).
The technology and business behind Berliner disc recording (as of the end of 1897)
On the disc recording side, the development of gramophone recording and record manufacturing, pioneered by Emile Berliner (1851–1929), shaped commercial developments in the late 1890s. Furthermore, advances in mechanical components, including improvements by Eldridge R. Johnson (1867–1945) and others, made mass production and distribution more feasible, and overview materials show that by the end of 1897 the foundations of an industry "selling discs" were beginning to take shape.
- https://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/berliner/berliner.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Berliner
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldridge_R._Johnson
The development of the recording industry as seen through Berliner's career (around 1897)
This overview of the business history of Emile Berliner (1851–1929) outlines the process by which the recording industry transitioned from "technology" to "product," covering not only inventions but also company founding, sales channel formation, and competitive relationships. Even if you cannot identify the individual sessions from December 1897, this can be used as basic information to understand which regions, which companies, and which methods were used to expand commercial recording around 1897.
