Recording

First Recording – ‘Aeolus’ – 1924

The first recording of Joyce reading from his work was organised by Sylvia Beach, the publisher of Ulysses. Late in 1924, she went to the Paris branch of the Gramophone Company (which owned the label His Master’s Voice) and asked if they would make a recording of Joyce reading. She was directed to Piero Coppola, an Italian composer and conductor, who was then artistic director of His Master’s Voice in Paris.

Coppola told Beach there was no public demand for anything other than music recordings, but he agreed they could make a recording for her. However, the recording would have to be made at her expense, and it wouldn’t have the ‘His Master’s Voice’ label on it or be listed in their catalogue. Beach agreed to his terms.

According to Beach, Joyce himself was anxious to make this recording. Joyce had chosen to read John F Taylor’s speech from the ‘Aeolus’ episode, claiming it was the only passage that could be lifted out of Ulysses, and that being declamatory in style it was therefore suitable for recital.

But Beach believed he hadn’t chosen it for these reasons alone. She felt that the passage “expressed something he wanted said and preserved in his own voice” (Beach: 171). MJC Hodgart, writing later about the same passage, claimed that it is “a truly inspired statement of Joyce’s artistic credo…” (Hodgart: 121).

(It’s not clear, however, if Joyce had originally intended to read from a different part of Ulysses. On 16 November 1924, he wrote to Harriet Weaver saying that he was learning a page of the ‘Sirens’ episode for the recording, and he repeats this to Valery Larbaud in a letter of 20 November, just a week before the recording was due to happen.)

As Joyce was preparing for the recording session, he was suffering with severe eye problems. His eye specialist, Doctor Borsch, decided at the beginning of November that Joyce would have to undergo another eye operation and had scheduled it for November 27. However, Joyce asked for it to be deferred until 28 November so that he could make the recording.

On Thursday 27 November 1924, Joyce travelled with Sylvia Beach by taxi to the Paris suburb of Billancourt, where the record company’s factory was located. The journey seemed long, and Joyce was suffering both from his eyes and from nerves, but he soon felt at home with Piero Coppola, with whom he discussed music in Italian.

Beach says that the recording was an ordeal for Joyce. The first attempt to record failed – apparently because Joyce faltered – and they had to begin again. In the end, the recording took up one side of a twelve-inch disc and it lasts just over four minutes. Two days after the recording, Joyce underwent his sixth eye operation, to remove a cataract from his left eye.

Given that the Gramophone Company wouldn’t produce the record under the HMV label, it seems that Joyce took the time to design his own record label. His sketch for a record label is now in the James Joyce Collection at the University at Buffalo, along with several of the original records.

In her memoirs, Sylvia Beach acknowledged that the HMV recording was rather primitive and not a technical success. However, it remains the only recording Joyce made from Ulysses, and Beach said it was her favourite of the two recordings: “I think the Ulysses record is a wonderful performance. I never hear it without being deeply moved” (Beach: 171).

Sylvia Beach ordered thirty copies of the record, to be paid for on delivery. The records were not intended for sale, and most of the copies were given to Joyce who gave them away to friends and family. Beach kept a couple of records herself, and admitted that she later sold them at a stiff price when she was hard up.