Gramophone Company
The British company Gramophone Company , based in Hayes ( Middlesex county , today London Borough of Hillingdon ) was founded in 1898 by the German-American entrepreneur and record pioneer Emil Berliner for the European market.
Company history
For its part, the company founded the Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft, probably its most important subsidiary, based in Hanover , headed by Berliner's brother Josef . Hanover was the birthplace of the brothers. The world's first records were produced in the J. Berliner Telephon-Fabrik there on Kniestraße. On January 1, 1900, the subsidiary was converted into a stock corporation. The three brothers held 40% of the shares and the British parent company 60%. In the German Reich it came after the start of the First World War to the expropriation of the parent company.
The Gramophone Company was able to generate and establish a figurative mark with the dog Nipper in front of a gramophone and the text line His Master's Voice ("The voice of his master") at a very early stage , which was at times one of the most famous in the western world and is still used today. but legally in numerous hands, e.g. B. also at RCA and Victor . An important step in technical development is reflected in the fact that the artistic template used by Francis Barraud initially showed a phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison , which was then painted over with a gramophone. What is certain is that the copyrighted image was purchased by the company in 1899 for a total of £ 100 for use in newspaper advertisements . Later, blackboards for sales rooms and of course the use on the company's products were added. The original should still be hanging in the boardroom of the EMI in Hayes and the overpainted area should be clearly visible. Another early trademark of the company shows an angel sitting on a record and scratching the groove with a feather. The two signets were also used at the same time, as Nipper could be seen on the label of the record, but the angel was embossed on the back (unrecorded on early records).
After acquiring the rights to the Lambert Typewriter Company in 1900, the company was called Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd. for a few years .
After the expropriation of the German subsidiary, the Gramophone Company founded Electrola GmbH as a new subsidiary on May 8, 1925 in Nowawes near Potsdam , which received its record license in December 1925. Electrola moved to Cologne in September 1953 and developed into one of the most important music labels in Germany. The Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in March 1931 in the newly founded British EMI Group , which in later decades was one of the five largest music labels in the world.
museum
- Musée des ondes Emile Berliner , Montréal, Canada
literature
- The voice, the magazine of the Gramophone Co., Ltd. (Company magazine) Hayes (Middlesex), 1st year 1917 - 35th year 1954
- Curt Riess : Knaurs world history of the record. Droemersche Publishing House, Zurich 1966.
- John R. Bennett: A catalog of vocal recordings from the English catalogs of the Gramophone Company 1898-1899, the Gramophone Company Limited 1899-1900, the Gramophone & Typewriter Company Limited 1901-1907 and the Gramophone Company Limited 1907-1925. Greenwood Press, Westport (Conn.) 1978, ISBN 0-313-20237-0 .
- Alan Kelly: His master's voice. La voce del padrone. The Italian catalog. A complete numerical catalog of Italian gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in Italy and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd. Greenwood Press, New York City et al. a. 1988, ISBN 0-313-26498-8 .
- Alan Kelly: His master's voice. The French catalog. A complete numerical catalog of French gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in France and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd. Greenwood Press, New York City et al. a. 1990, ISBN 0-313-27333-2 .
- Alan Kelly: His master's voice. The German catalog. A complete numerical catalog of German gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere by The Gramophone Company Ltd. Greenwood Press, New York City et al. a. 1994, ISBN 0-313-29220-5 .
- Alan Kelly, Jacques Klöters: His master's voice. The Dutch catalog. A complete numerical catalog of Dutch and Belgian gramophone recordings made from 1900 to 1929 in Holland, Belgium, and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd. Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., Et al. a. 1997, ISBN 0-313-29883-1 .
