Christmas Recordings 1917 and 1927
The Knott’s only had a few Christmas records. Maybe they performed the music themselves or thought of it as church music. These two records predate their move to the house at Park and Calhoun.
Silent Night dominates these early recordings with appearances on three of the four sides.
From 1917, in the gramophone era, we have The Neapolitan Trio consisting of flute, harp and violin performing a gentle Silent Night accented with bells.
On the B-side Francis Lapitino of the trio performs alone on the harp and picks up the tempo a bit with a medley of Christmas songs.
https://archive.org/details/78_christmas-hymns---selection_francis-j.-lapitino_gbia0013524b
A decade later in 1927 we have two ‘orthophonic’ recordings which show the improved audio quality provided by electronics. Silent Night makes another appearance performed by an operatic duet backed by an orchestra.
On the flip side they perform Der Tannenbaum in German. This is one of the few foreign language recordings in the collection.
By the time Luella Knott passed in 1965 these records were decades old. One wonders when the Knotts last played them at Christmas.
Neapolitan Trio (1917)
A: Silent Night, Holy Night
B: Christmas Hymns Selection
Lashanska & Reimers (1927)
A: Silent Night, Holy Night
B: Der Tannenbaum
