View from the Cafe to Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City
Here is a recording that, having turned 121 years old a few days ago, is too old for Radio Dismuke’s 1920s and 1930s popular music and jazz format. Thus, unlike most recordings presented on this blog, it will not be added to the station’s playlist. But that certainly does not mean it isn’t worth sharing.
This waltz recording was made during the Victor Talking Machine Company’s 1905 recording expedition to Mexico City. The company made a previous trip to Mexico City in 1903.
In 1905, cylinder records still outsold disc records, although that would soon change.
Victor, founded just four years earlier, only made disc records. The company’s chief rivals were Edison, which, until 1913, only made cylinder records, and Columbia, which issued records in both formats.
Understandably, the still-young American record industry was eager to expand into various Latin American markets. However, it wouldn’t be until a couple of decades later that demand in certain Latin American countries grew enough to justify Victor building permanent, full-time recording studios. Thus, the only way to record artists from such countries was either for them to travel to the United States or for the record labels to make periodic trips with portable recording equipment.
In 1905, Mexico was ruled by President Porfirio Díaz, an authoritarian leader widely criticized for corruption and political repression. For an American company to do business in Mexico, it was not sufficient merely to offer a competitive product. It first needed to win the approval of, or otherwise cultivate relationships with, President Diaz and his inner circle of officials.
To prepare for its 1905 recording expedition, Victor officials gifted President Diaz with a luxurious Victor phonograph custom-made especially for him. Victor devoted a full page in its June 1905 catalog to a replica of the letter of appreciation it received from Diaz. This letter did much to ensure the cooperation of local officials and establish rapport with military institutions such as the Banda de Zapadores.
The recordings captured during the 1905 expedition were primarily intended for export to the Mexican market, though a secondary market did exist within the United States among the Mexican immigrant community.
While Mexico had a population of 14.2 million in 1905, the market for phonographs and records was still small and mostly limited to an urban elite. The vast majority of the country consisted of rural peasants and, to a lesser degree, miners and urban factory workers, whose average earnings ranged from 0.25 to 0.50 pesos per day.
Single-sided Victor records (double-sided records were still a few years away) sold for 1 peso or more, depending on the musical content. Victor’s lowest-priced phonograph sold for around 38 pesos. Thus, for most Mexicans, the price of a single phonograph record was roughly equal to two to four days’ wages, and a phonograph to play it on cost between eleven and twenty-two weeks’ worth of pay.
American record labels realized that, among the small percentage of the population that could afford to buy records, there was an unserved demand for recordings of familiar local music and local musicians, not just those that were popular in the United States and Europe.
The staff that Victor sent on these early recording expeditions consisted of technicians and sound engineers who were highly knowledgeable about the still-evolving early recording equipment. However, most came from blue-collar backgrounds and had only limited musical knowledge and next to no knowledge of foreign music. Thus, they relied heavily on local contacts such as music store owners who sold Victor products to identify the music and artists that the Mexican elite were familiar with and would likely buy.
La Banda de Zapadores, which translates to The Band of the Sappers, was an official unit of the Mexican Army. A sapper is a combat engineer responsible for various tasks to support land forces such as clearing obstacles, building fortifications, and repairing bridges.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common for various branches of the military, as well as regional governments and local police departments, to have their own bands of professional or semi-professional musicians. Such bands, heavily subsidized by the government, became a significant part of the country’s cultural life through free public outdoor performances in a country where few people could afford concert tickets.
La Banda de Zapadores was one of the most famous such bands. While technically part of the army, it attracted the country’s finest classically trained musicians. The Diaz administration used the band as cultural ambassadors and frequently sent it abroad, where it became internationally famous for winning first prize in several world fairs, including Buffalo in 1901, St. Louis in 1904, and Portland in 1905.
Such international acclaim made the band a household name throughout Mexico and a source of national pride among all segments of Mexican society. In addition to making disc records for Victor, the band also recorded cylinder records for Edison.
“Morir Soñando” (“To Die Dreaming”) is a waltz composed by Manuel Estrada that was apparently well known at the time. I was not able to locate much information about Estrada, though I found references to other songs he wrote, such as “Te volví a ver,” a waltz, and “Sufrir y llorar,” a mazurka. Nor have I been able to determine the exact year that “Morir Soñando” was published. I have found references to sheet music of the song being published in Germany and Austria in 1898.
I did find an online reference to the existence of an 1897 Mexican chapbook that included a song called “Morir Soñando.” Chapbooks were inexpensive booklets containing lyrics to well-known songs without the musical notation. But that reference does not mention whether it was the same Manuel Estrada composition, and the actual copy of the chapbook is locked in a California archive and not available online.
I also found a couple of 1920s recordings online of a completely different song also called “Morir Soñando,” but neither provided composer credit.
While this recording was made in July 1905, it was not released until July 1906 on Victor 98017, which was single-sided, as were all records at that time.
In 1908, much to Victor’s chagrin, rival Columbia introduced its new line of double-disc records proudly boasting that they offered music on both sides! Their immediate popularity forced Victor to follow suit and gradually phase out all single-sided records except its prestigious high-priced Red Seal classical and operatic offerings. Recordings that had been issued as single-sided records and were to remain in Victor’s catalog were coupled with another recording and reissued on double-sided discs.
In July 1909, the single-sided issue of “Morir Soñando” was deleted from Victor’s catalog and reissued on double-sided Victor 62009 with “Lindas Mexicanas” by Banda de Policía de México, recorded during Victor’s 1907 recording expedition to Mexico, on the flip side. (I have omitted that recording here, even though it is my favorite of the two sides, as it is a strong candidate for inclusion on Radio Dismuke’s annual New Year’s broadcast, which will feature a few recordings that will turn 120 years old in 2027.)
Based on the label design, the copy in my collection was pressed sometime between 1916 and 1917.
What I find remarkable is that this record remained in Victor’s catalog all the way up to 1928. Victor converted to electrical recording (i.e., began recording with microphones) in 1925. The vast improvement offered by the new technology effectively made Victor’s entire catalog of pre-1925 recordings obsolete, and except for a few highly significant artists no longer able to record, such as Enrico Caruso, most recordings were quickly dropped. For a record such as this to remain available for sale for another three years is unusual.
