Mormon Tabernacle Choir Marks 100 Years of Recording

Exactly one century ago, at 8:00 p.m. MST, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir recorded its first album.

Now 175 albums, 5 gold and 2 platinum records, and a Grammy later, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has been recording longer than any other recording artist in the United States. The choir has already celebrated this milestone in a several ways. The choir released a three-disc set of songs titled 100: Celebrating a Century of Recording Excellence, which includes aCD/DVD of rarely seen or heard performances. The choir also held a Pioneer Day concert at the Conference Center in July and was voted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in August.

"Just think — we’ve been on the cutting edge for 100 years, right from the beginning,” said Mormon Tabernacle Choir president Mac Christensen. “And so many times they thought it couldn’t be done, and it’s been done. There’s nothing else like it in the world. What’s happening now and what’s happened before is unbelievable.”

The choir’s new album contains 32 tracks made up of the choir’s most-requested songs, including “Consider the Lilies,” “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (for which it won a Grammy), “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah.

The CD/DVD’s rarely seen or heard performances include the first recording made by the choir on 1 September 1910, “Let the Mountains Shout for Joy.”

Click on this video for photos and audio from that 1910 recording, as well as video of today’s choir performing the same song.

The all-volunteer, 360-member choir is accompanied by the 110-member Orchestra at Temple Square. The choir’s weekly Music and the Spoken Word program is the world’s longest-running network broadcast and airs on more than 2,000 TV, radio and cable stations across the United States. For more information about the choir, visit MormonTabernacleChoir.org.