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Blog Posts by Subject: Recorded Sound and Video

James G. Speaight, the forgotten child prodigy remembered - and his brother Joseph Speaight, the composer

by Bob Kosovsky, Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division
February 13, 2008

Many warm greetings and thanks to Sebastian Pryke who, in a reponse to one of my previous posts, revealed himself to be the great-great grandnephew of child prodigy James G. Speaight. Sebastian and his brother Jonathan Pryke are apparently the great-great grandsons of James's brother Joseph Speaight (1868-1947) who was a British pianist, composer, and taught at Trinity College. According to Baker's biographical dictionary of musicians (7th edition), Joseph composed three symphonies, a piano concerto, and other works such as songs.

The British Library catalog lists quite a number of songs and small works by Joseph Speaight. Sebastian mentioned Joseph's unpublished 

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Not Long for this World

by Ryan Haley, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Art & Architecture
November 26, 2007

Brooklyn Museum and the near-permanent exhibit, American Identities. Tired from the walk, we loitered around the first room and looked at the disparate paintings, furniture & objets d’art. Also in this room was a television monitor showing a loop of Thomas Edison’s films of revelers at Coney Island. These films reminded one of us of another Edison film from Coney Island that hasn’t made it onto the Library of Congress’ American Memory site: “Electrocuting an Elephant” (1903). Two grainy versions of the film are available here & here, but it’s perhaps best to start with the reported account of the execution from the New York Times 

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