During the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration music played an important auxiliary role in the lives of expedition members. Musical items which had been taken on board by various expeditions included phonographs/gramophones, pianos, violins, flutes, music boxes, a balalaika, banjos, and the shakuhachi flute, amongst others. Music was a great pastime, could remind the explorers of home, and could lift their spirits. Sometimes more unusual uses for music were also found: a gramophone attached to a candle functioned as an alarm clock. Also, music could attract wildlife which could then be studied or consumed.
There is a 2-CD set 'Scott's Music Box' containing recordings which had been listened to on gramophones on the British Antarctic Expedition ‘Terra Nova’ (1910-1913) led by Robert Falcon Scott. These recordings include popular tunes of the day, as well as classical works such as G. Bizet’s Chanson Boheme performed by the violinist Jan Kubelik: https://youtu.be/VgCK50KcRUY
'Scott's Music Box' CD: https://open.spotify.com/album/7ERJ6hpjj9JPel02Wv8D2a
Sources: Carolyn Philpott. The sounds of silence: music in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. The Polar Journal 3 (2) (2013). 447-465. https://doi.org/10.1080/2154896X.2013.846976
Antarctica. Music, sounds, and cultural connections. Edited by Bernadette Hince, Rupert Summerson, and Arnan Wiesel. Acton: Australian National University Press, 2015.
Robert Scott’s South polar journey party at the South Pole, which they reached just 34 days after Roald Amundsen. The party did not make it back.
By Henry Bowers (1883–1912) - Image originally uploaded on 5 Dec 2003 by en:User:AlexPlank and edited by Ian Dunster on 24 Apr 2005), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3197551 Last expedition of Robert Falcon Scott. The image shows Wilson, Scott and Oates (standing); and Bowers and Evans (sitting) at the South Pole.
"To entertain the men, Captain Robert Scott took a gramophone on his South Pole Expedition. Chris, one of his dogs, was apparently also a fan, September 1911"
By Photographes du National Geographic - http://natgeofound.tumblr.com/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33574006 Photograph by Herbert G. Ponting.