That recoding could only be played once before the tinfoil was damaged so much that it was not possible to play it again. The oldest known recording is a short extract from a George Frideric Handel oratorio in 1888, the same year Emile Berliner made the grammophone. So now the history off recording has to be rewritten. In sound history sources it has for long been known that the Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville took a patern on a phonoautogram long before Edison took patern on he`s phonograph. Martinvilles machine was made for automatic stenography and not for playback off the recorded sound. That may has been the main reason why Edison has had the “record” for all these years, and that Martinvilles recording off ”Au Clair de la Lune” from 9. April, 1860 until now has been put away and not restored so it can bee played.
For more obscure recordings take some minutes at these highly recommended www sites; UBU and WFMU. Also recommend this story on Anti-Records by Ron Rice.
Sources; International Herald Tribune artikkel om pre-Edision opptak (March 28, 2008, page 3), Wikipedia.
