Fred Gaisberg

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-scouting and 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 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.

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 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 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.

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