Issler's Orchestra


Issler's Orchestra was an early recording ensemble, and one of the most popular of the 1890s. The group formed in the fall of 1889 at the Edison Laboratory Because the purpose of the group was to make recordings, not fill an auditorium, it had only four or five performers, a form that would come to be known as a "parlor orchestra". Personnel and instrumentation varied in the first year, but most sessions included Edward Issler on piano, George Schweinfest on flute and D.B. Dana on cornet. Clarinetist William Tuson and xylophonist Charles P. Lowe would also become core members in time.
The group performed dance music such as quadrilles, waltzes and polkas, arrangements of musical theater, opera, and popular songs, "descriptive" pieces evoking a narrative, chamber music, and marches. After the Edison Laboratory suspended its recording program in January 1890, Issler's Orchestra recorded for the New Jersey Phonograph Company, United States Phonograph Company, Columbia Phonograph Company Chicago Talking Machine Company and others. The ensemble stopped recording around 1899, but individual members, especially Schweinfest and Lowe, would continue individually into the disc era.