The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square (as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)
Three hundred voices. “America’s Choir” takes its first steps into recorded sound.
ListenO My Father · B-side video
“O My Father,” the B-side of Columbia A930. Video courtesy of Alex Shepherd. Open video ↗ [6]
1911 · Columbia
Let the Mountains Shout for Joy / O My Father
Radio would one day carry the choir into homes around the world, but before that Columbia would bring a recording machine to Salt Lake City. This disc preserves music from the choir’s inaugural acoustic session, conducted by Evan Stephens on 1 September 1910. “Let the Mountains Shout for Joy,” his own anthem, is recognized in the choir’s centennial history as its earliest surviving recording. [1] [2]
| Accession | OMMA-0158 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Mormon Tabernacle Choir · conducted by Evan Stephens |
| Release | September 1911 (catalogued) · United States [3] |
| Recorded | 1 September 1910 · Salt Lake Tabernacle |
| Label | Columbia · A930 |
| Format | 10-inch shellac disc · 78 rpm · double-faced |
| Issue | U.S. commercial issue · blue-and-gold double-note labels |
| Runouts | Not documented |
| Recorded grade | VG |
Release history and significance
Recording a choir of this size was a technical adventure. On the evening of 1 September 1910, engineer Alexander Hausmann suspended two large recording horns from a rope stretched between the Tabernacle’s galleries. One faced the sopranos and altos; the other, the tenors and basses. Three hundred singers crowded together, the women removing their hats to make room. Organist J. J. McClellan played loudly enough for the distant pipes to register. The choir recorded twelve selections in two hours. [1]
The session began with a test passage from “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” The playback delighted those listening, but that recording did not survive as an issued disc. “Let the Mountains Shout for Joy” did. A century later, the choir used the surviving performance to open its recording-anniversary celebration, allowing the voices of 1910 to lead into those of its present-day singers. [2]
The two sides bring together contrasting forms of Latter-day Saint worship: Stephens’s expansive anthem of praise and the intimate address of “O My Father.” The latter sets Eliza R. Snow’s text, first published in 1845 as “My Father in Heaven,” in a choral arrangement credited on the label to Stephens. He is present throughout the object as composer, arranger and conductor. [3] [4] [7]
These early discs began a recording history that would encompass radio, television and successive generations of sound technology. Music and the Spoken Word began broadcasting in July 1929; the choir’s first long-playing record followed in 1949, and Ronald Reagan would famously dub the ensemble “America’s Choir” at his 1981 inauguration. Columbia A930 captures the acoustic beginnings of that reach, when a choir’s familiar music could, for the first time, travel independently of its singers. [5]
Market context
Known sales of this historic record are exceptionally rare. On 17 October 2026, the Discogs listing for this Columbia edition showed one registered owner, seven wantlist entries and no recorded sale. [3]
Physical Description
A ten-inch, double-faced shellac disc with Columbia’s blue-and-gold double-note label design. The photographed reverse carries “O My Father,” the Mormon Tabernacle Choir credit, Evan Stephens’s arrangement and conducting credits, catalogue A930 and the printed matrix number 4884. The reference A-side label number is 4880. [3] [7]
Condition.
OMMA grades this copy as VG. Collector Alex Shepherd describes the sound as “rough and gritty,” with readable labels, and considers the disc most useful for display. The supplied photograph preserves the title and principal label credits. [7]
Provenance
Alex Shepherd, a collector in Orem, Utah, reports purchasing two copies at The American Rust Company in Sugarhouse, Salt Lake City, in 2019. He transferred this copy to OMMA on 17 October 2026. [7]
Sources
- Richard E. Turley Jr., “The First Mormon Tabernacle Choir Recordings, 1910,” Ensign, September 2010. Session history and contemporary newspaper accounts.
- R. Scott Lloyd, “Mormon Tabernacle Choir: Recording career reaches landmark,” Church News, 19 June 2010. The earliest surviving recording and the centennial performance.
- Discogs, release 26523179: Columbia A930. September 1911 release date, edition details, credits and printed label identifiers; marketplace statistics consulted 17 October 2026.
- The Church Historian’s Press, Eliza R. Snow, “My Father in Heaven,” October 1845. Historical text later known as “O My Father.”
- “Tabernacle Choir Marks 110 Years of Recording and Broadcast History,” Church Newsroom, 10 September 2020. Recording and broadcast milestones.
- “O My Father,” Columbia A930 B-side video. Courtesy of Alex Shepherd; supplied by OMMA.
- Alex Shepherd’s account, preserved in OMMA’s accession documentation dated 17 October 2026; owner-supplied photograph of the “O My Father” label. Provenance, descriptive condition report and copy identification.