Die Zauberflöte), She alone charmeth my sadness (Gounod, La reine de Saba) and O ruddier than the cherry (Handel, Acis and Galatea), all of which remained in the standard English concert repertoire well into the twentieth century, and were recorded by such singers as David Bispham, Peter Dawson, Robert Radford or Norman Allin. Foli's voice was powerful but of beautiful quality, its compass from the bass E to F above middle C. With his vigorous, straightforward delivery, he was a great favourite in London for many years. George Bernard Shaw referred to the certainty and spontaneity of his roulades. Recordings Foli was one of the very earliest classical musicians to make a phonograph recording. He did this at The Crystal Palace in 1878, and the fact was described and reported in the press. A description drawn from The Daily Telegraph shows that at a private recording session at the Crystal Palace on Good Friday 1878, "both duets and solos were successfully tried by Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, M. Lemmens, Signor Foli, M. Manns and other skilled musicians." In another report of Foli's recordings, "... the accomplished vocalist, to test the powers of the phonograph, sang a verse of 'Jack's Yarn' into it. In a few seconds the ruby point was properly adjusted over the sheet of tinfoil, and the selection repeated as sung by the Signor, though, of course, in not so loud a tone (the sound issues from the machine as from a distance). Thereupon Signor Foli's friend purchased the sheet of tinfoil, with the remark that when he returned to New Jersey he would give the many friends of Signor Foli there a treat. He meant to put the tinfoil on an exactly similar phonograph at New Jersey, and have the song repeated. Whether the experiment succeeded has not yet transpired." The recording is not known to have survived, nor, probably, is any recording of him known. Character In 1879 he appeared as witness at the Old Bailey, in a forgery case relating to authorship of a song, 'The Tar's Return', which had been written for Foli and sold to him for his public endorsement. He apparently possessed a frightening temper: the story is told of a disagreement with a head waiter in a well-known restaurant, in which Foli threw his dinner, plate and all, out of the window to make the point that the meal was unsatisfactory, shouting 'That's