Fred Gaisberg
Encyclopedia
Frederick William Gaisberg (1 January 1873 – 2 September 1951) was an American-born musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone
. He himself did not use the term 'producer' and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge
of EMI
or an innovator like John Culshaw
of Decca
. Gaisberg concentrated on talent-spotting and in persuading performers to make recordings for the newly-invented gramophone.
Gaisberg began working in the recording industry in America as a young man, becoming a pioneer of early recording, and also worked as piano accompanist. In 1898, he joined the Gramophone Company
in England as its first recording engineer. In 1902, he recorded music sung by the tenor
Enrico Caruso for Victor, and the recordings became a sensation. By 1921, Gaisberg was artistic director of HMV
's international artistes department. After 1925, he concentrated on artist management. In 1939, he retired from his position but continued as a consultant in the industry through the 1940s.
A musically talented youngster, he encountered the fledgling recording technology in the early 1890s and got a job working for the Graphophone
company in America. Poor sound quality and short playing time, however, meant that recordings were more of an amusing novelty than a serious means of reproducing music. In this decade the first of the recording industry's format wars was taking place, with the original cylinder recordings gradually being ousted by the superior and more convenient Berliner flat disc. Gaisberg played an important role in this war, helping to establish 78 revolutions per minute as the standard playing speed and shellac as the standard material for making discs.
was formed in London. Gaisberg, by then working as a piano accompanist and recording supervisor for Emile Berliner
, left New York for London to join the Gramophone Company as its first recording engineer. He landed in Liverpool
with recording outfit, a $25 bicycle and introductions and instructions from Berliner. Among his first recordings in London were several made by Syria Lamonte, an Australian singer working at Rules Restaurant
in Maiden Lane
.
Gaisberg was the first person to record the tenor
Enrico Caruso, in Milan
on April 11, 1902. The voice recorded well even on the primitive equipment of the time, and the entire enterprise paid off financially as well as artistically. Caruso's recordings were released in 1903 on the premium-price Victor 'Red Seal' label, the first recordings to feature Nipper, the 'His Master's Voice' dog, listening to the acoustic horn of a gramophone. Caruso's Victor recordings sold prodigiously and turned him into an international star. Caruso himself said, "My Victor records will be my biography."
Gaisberg's brother William worked with him. They signed up and/or recorded such international stars as Adelina Patti
, Francesco Tamagno
, Feodor Chaliapin
, Beniamino Gigli
, Nellie Melba
, John McCormack and Fritz Kreisler
. Gaisberg was the only record producer to record a castrato
singer (Alessandro Moreschi
of the Sistine Chapel
choir), and the first person to produce recordings in India and Japan. He cut India's first gramophone recordings, which featured Gauhar Jaan
singing a khayal, on 2 November 1902. These sessions took place in a makeshift studio rigged up in two rooms of a Calcutta hotel. In Japan, he recorded more than 270 titles in one single month of 1903.
Gaisberg made a number of trips to pre-Revolutionary Russia, where his recordings helped develop one of recorded music's largest early markets. He made the first recordings of the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing
.
Unlike his successors Legge and Culshaw, Gaisberg did not generally regard it as part of his function to influence the way performers performed. He found the best artists he could, signed them up and faithfully captured their performance on disc in the best possible sound. He told a colleague that he saw his task simply as one of making as many sound photographs or gramophone disc sides as possible during each recording session.
) recording in 1925, he delegated the role of producer and concentrated on artist-and-repertoire management. He remained as artistic director after the HMV and Columbia firms merged in 1931, creating Electric and Musical Industries (EMI). The recordings made under his supervision include Sir Edward Elgar
's series of records of his symphonies, concertos and other major works. With Bernard Shaw
, the BBC
and others Gaisberg was partly responsible for persuading Elgar to write a third symphony, though in the end the composer died before the symphony's initial sketches were completed. (They were eventually "elaborated" into a symphonic shape by the composer Anthony Payne
four decades later.)
Gaisberg refused offers of a directorship of HMV, preferring to remain a link between the artists and the company. At the age of sixty-six, in 1939, Gaisberg retired; he remained a consultant to EMI and continued to have an important influence on the recording industry. In the late 1940s he argued in favour of long-play records, introduced by Columbia Records
in 1948, and stereophonic recording, introduced after his death.
A banquet was given at the Savoy Hotel
to mark his retirement. It was attended by renowned musicians as diverse as Sir Thomas Beecham
, Gracie Fields
, Richard Tauber
and Arthur Rubinstein
. Gaisberg retained his American citizenship to the end, and was a life-long bachelor. He died at his home in Hampstead in 1951 at age 78 and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery
in West Hampstead
.
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
. He himself did not use the term 'producer' and was not an impresario like his protégé Walter Legge
Walter Legge
Harry Walter Legge was an influential English classical record producer, most notably for EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as "Great Recordings of the Century". He worked in the recording industry from 1927, combining this with the post of junior...
of EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
or an innovator like John Culshaw
John Culshaw
John Royds Culshaw OBE was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for...
of Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. Gaisberg concentrated on talent-spotting and in persuading performers to make recordings for the newly-invented gramophone.
Gaisberg began working in the recording industry in America as a young man, becoming a pioneer of early recording, and also worked as piano accompanist. In 1898, he joined the Gramophone Company
Gramophone Company
The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...
in England as its first recording engineer. In 1902, he recorded music sung by the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Enrico Caruso for Victor, and the recordings became a sensation. By 1921, Gaisberg was artistic director of HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
's international artistes department. After 1925, he concentrated on artist management. In 1939, he retired from his position but continued as a consultant in the industry through the 1940s.
Early years
Gaisberg was born in Washington, DC. His father Wilhelm was the son of German immigrants. Gaisberg was educated in Washington and was a chorister at St. John's Episcopal Church.A musically talented youngster, he encountered the fledgling recording technology in the early 1890s and got a job working for the Graphophone
Graphophone
The Graphophone was the name and trademark of an improved version of the phonograph invented at the Volta Laboratory established by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C....
company in America. Poor sound quality and short playing time, however, meant that recordings were more of an amusing novelty than a serious means of reproducing music. In this decade the first of the recording industry's format wars was taking place, with the original cylinder recordings gradually being ousted by the superior and more convenient Berliner flat disc. Gaisberg played an important role in this war, helping to establish 78 revolutions per minute as the standard playing speed and shellac as the standard material for making discs.
The Gramophone Company and HMV
In 1898 the Gramophone CompanyGramophone Company
The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...
was formed in London. Gaisberg, by then working as a piano accompanist and recording supervisor for Emile Berliner
Emile Berliner
Emile Berliner or Emil Berliner was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for developing the disc record gramophone...
, left New York for London to join the Gramophone Company as its first recording engineer. He landed in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
with recording outfit, a $25 bicycle and introductions and instructions from Berliner. Among his first recordings in London were several made by Syria Lamonte, an Australian singer working at Rules Restaurant
Rules (restaurant)
Rules is a London restaurant on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden. Rules was founded in 1798 and is London's oldest restaurant.Rules was opened by Thomas Rule in 1798, primarily as an oyster bar but served, and continues to serve, traditional British Cuisine...
in Maiden Lane
Maiden Lane
Maiden Lane may refer to:* Maiden Lane , a street in Covent Garden, London* Maiden Lane , a street in Manhattan* Maiden Lane , a street in San Francisco...
.
Gaisberg was the first person to record the tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Enrico Caruso, in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
on April 11, 1902. The voice recorded well even on the primitive equipment of the time, and the entire enterprise paid off financially as well as artistically. Caruso's recordings were released in 1903 on the premium-price Victor 'Red Seal' label, the first recordings to feature Nipper, the 'His Master's Voice' dog, listening to the acoustic horn of a gramophone. Caruso's Victor recordings sold prodigiously and turned him into an international star. Caruso himself said, "My Victor records will be my biography."
Gaisberg's brother William worked with him. They signed up and/or recorded such international stars as Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
, Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno was an operatic tenor from Italy who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America. On 5 February 1887, he cemented his place in musical history by creating the role of Otello in Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece of the same name...
, Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.During the first phase...
, Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...
, Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
, John McCormack and Fritz Kreisler
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most famous violin masters of his or any other day, he was known for his sweet tone and expressive phrasing. Like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately...
. Gaisberg was the only record producer to record a castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
singer (Alessandro Moreschi
Alessandro Moreschi
Alessandro Moreschi was the most famous castrato singer of the late 19th century, and the only castrato of the classic bel canto tradition to make solo sound recordings.-Life:...
of the Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and its decoration that was frescoed throughout by Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio...
choir), and the first person to produce recordings in India and Japan. He cut India's first gramophone recordings, which featured Gauhar Jaan
Gauhar Jaan
Gauhar Jaan was an Indian singer and dancer or a tawaif from Calcutta. She was one of the first performers to record music on 78 rpm records in India, and released by Gramophone Company of India. -Early life:...
singing a khayal, on 2 November 1902. These sessions took place in a makeshift studio rigged up in two rooms of a Calcutta hotel. In Japan, he recorded more than 270 titles in one single month of 1903.
Gaisberg made a number of trips to pre-Revolutionary Russia, where his recordings helped develop one of recorded music's largest early markets. He made the first recordings of the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing
Vladimir Rosing
Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing , aka Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in England and the United States...
.
Unlike his successors Legge and Culshaw, Gaisberg did not generally regard it as part of his function to influence the way performers performed. He found the best artists he could, signed them up and faithfully captured their performance on disc in the best possible sound. He told a colleague that he saw his task simply as one of making as many sound photographs or gramophone disc sides as possible during each recording session.
Later years
In 1921 Gaisberg became HMV's artistic director in the newly formed international artistes' department. After the introduction of electrical (microphoneMicrophone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
) recording in 1925, he delegated the role of producer and concentrated on artist-and-repertoire management. He remained as artistic director after the HMV and Columbia firms merged in 1931, creating Electric and Musical Industries (EMI). The recordings made under his supervision include Sir Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
's series of records of his symphonies, concertos and other major works. With Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and others Gaisberg was partly responsible for persuading Elgar to write a third symphony, though in the end the composer died before the symphony's initial sketches were completed. (They were eventually "elaborated" into a symphonic shape by the composer Anthony Payne
Anthony Payne
Anthony Payne is an English composer, most famous for the work published as Edward Elgar: The Sketches for Symphony No. 3 Elaborated by Anthony Payne...
four decades later.)
Gaisberg refused offers of a directorship of HMV, preferring to remain a link between the artists and the company. At the age of sixty-six, in 1939, Gaisberg retired; he remained a consultant to EMI and continued to have an important influence on the recording industry. In the late 1940s he argued in favour of long-play records, introduced by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in 1948, and stereophonic recording, introduced after his death.
A banquet was given at the Savoy Hotel
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a hotel located on the Strand, in the City of Westminster in central London. Built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan operas, the hotel opened on 6 August 1889. It was the first in the Savoy group of hotels and restaurants owned by...
to mark his retirement. It was attended by renowned musicians as diverse as Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
, Gracie Fields
Gracie Fields
Dame Gracie Fields, DBE , was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.-Early life:...
, Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber was an Austrian tenor acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang".-Early life:...
and Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...
. Gaisberg retained his American citizenship to the end, and was a life-long bachelor. He died at his home in Hampstead in 1951 at age 78 and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery
Hampstead Cemetery
Hampstead Cemetery is a historic cemetery in West Hampstead, London, located at the upper extremity of the NW6 district. Despite the name, the cemetery is three-quarters of a mile from Hampstead Village, and bears a different postcode...
in West Hampstead
West Hampstead
West Hampstead is an area in northwest London, England, situated between Childs Hill to the north, Frognal and Hampstead to the north-east, Swiss Cottage to the east, and South Hampstead to the south. Until the late 19th century, the locale was a small village called West End...
.