Last month The New York Times ran an article on their website about the reopening of wax records recorded at a Paris opera house in 1907 and in 1912. These recordings have recently been converted to digital format and are now released on CD. The New York Times has two sample recordings that you can listen to here. The article gives a brief description of the decisions made and the process used to get these recordings on to CD. The article also portrays how these wax recordings were “high tech” at the time and how the recordings have been preserved.

Applications for Education
I saw this article posted on the Open Culture blog a few weeks ago and I was just reminded of it after talking to one of the music teachers in my school. In his music survey course he has students write research papers about the development of music through time. I mentioned this article and the recordings to him and he seems to think that it could be of use to his students.