Early home recording: is it in Spanish?

[Menophanes]

I wonder if any of our Spanish-speakers can help in deciphering a home-recorded cylinder which I think may be in that language. I have added a digitisation to my web page http://www.horologia.me.uk/cylinders.html where it is the first item. The whole thing is very faint – not, I think, because of wear, and certainly not because of fungus (there is very little of this), but because the grooves are extremely shallow – and unfortunately it has a crack for about half its length, so that altogether it is not easy to listen to. The following are the chief events I think I can identify: 0:03–0:14 woman speaking; 0:30 higher-pitched voice (perhaps a child) cries out; 0:50 woman (perhaps the first speaker) begins to sing; 1:30 very faint yell of applause, followed by another verse of song; 2:12 louder cry of applause, this time including male voice or voices; 2:18 somebody apparently says 'Bueno'; 3:10 woman's voice, perhaps different from the first, begins to sing short phrases quite loudly. Regrettably this last episode is broken off after a few seconds because the phonograph runs out of feed-screw; the cylinder must have shrunk so that it does not go far enough onto the mandrel.

It is the one word 'bueno', together with the character of the music, that makes me think the language is Spanish. Of course I may be mistaken. I shall be grateful for any suggestions.

Oliver Mundy.

[EdiBrunsVic]

My wife served a church mission in Mexico. She speaks and understands Spanish. She listened to it and thinks it is Spanish, but hard to hear. We may play it again when we get time.