- Person
- Peter Carl Goldmark
- Lived
- 1906–1977
- Field
- Electrical engineering, recording and television
- From
- Hungarian-American
The story
Peter Carl Goldmark was born in 1906 in Budapest into a Hungarian Jewish family; his great-uncle was the composer Karl Goldmark. He played the cello from childhood, studied physics in Vienna and in 1936 joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in New York as a television engineer.
In the fall of 1945 he was at a friend's home when his host played a recording of Brahms's Second Piano Concerto. On the 78 rpm records of the day, the fifty-minute concerto needed six discs, and the music broke off every few minutes while the records were changed or turned. The heavy shellac discs were brittle, steel needles wore them down, and every playing made the sound a little worse. Goldmark resolved to find something better.
CBS had begun research on a longer-playing disc in 1939, and it resumed after the war under Goldmark's direction. He selected the team, bringing in William S. Bachman from General Electric, and much of the experimental work was done by Bachman and Howard H. Scott. Their microgroove record cut the groove to about three thousandths of an inch, compared with about ten thousandths on a 78, slowed the turntable to 33 1/3 revolutions per minute and used quiet, flexible vinyl in place of shellac. A 12-inch disc now held more than twenty minutes of music per side, so one LP could replace about six 78s.
Columbia Records unveiled the LP at the Waldorf Astoria in New York on June 21, 1948, with 133 recordings ready for sale. The new discs were lighter and far less breakable, which cut shipping and storage costs for producers, stores and buyers, and listeners could at last hear a whole symphonic movement or a Broadway score without interruption. The rest of the American industry soon adopted the format.
The LP dominated recorded music for some forty years. It created the album as a complete work, gave classical music, jazz and musical theater a natural home on record, and brought affordable recorded music into millions of homes worldwide. The National Inventors Hall of Fame inducted Goldmark in 2007 for the invention, and the 12-inch vinyl LP is still pressed today, at the heart of the vinyl revival.
Why it matters
The long-playing record let ordinary people own and enjoy complete symphonies, operas and albums, and the format is still made and loved today.
About Peter Carl Goldmark
Budapest-born CBS engineer who led the creation of the long-playing (LP) record, letting people hear whole symphonies and albums at home, and pioneered color television.
More about Peter Carl Goldmark
Sources
- Peter Carl Goldmark EBSCO Research Starters
- LP record Wikipedia
- Peter C. Goldmark National Inventors Hall of Fame
- Peter Carl Goldmark Jewish Virtual Library
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.