The following year, after Edison learned that his phonograph exhibit sent to the 1889 Paris Expo was not operating properly, he sent Wangemann and a few assistants to Europe to ensure the phonographs worked properly, but later extended the trip; Wangemann used the opportunity to make additional recordings for use in exhibitions. While he was in Europe, more than 2,000 blank cylinders were sent to Wangemann for this purpose and he recorded a number of prominent individuals, musicians, comedians, singers and statesmen, and the trip turned into a public relations sensation. Beginning with artists who were at the Paris Expo, Wangemann recorded pianist Édouard Risler, the popular French café-concert singer Paulus, and Charles-Marie Widor, an organist, among others. On August 29, 1889, he recorded four Hungarian singers, the Tacianu Sisters. This cylinder became a particular favorite of Wangemann's, and he lauded the "international value" of the new American invention, which enabled a German audience to hear a Russian melody once sung by a Hungarian quartet on a French stage.