Chicago Gramophone Society

Summary

This page presents an account of the Chicago Gramophone Society.

It is part of the site Classical 'Society' Records by Nick Morgan.

Documented from late 1926 until early 1928, the Chicago Gramophone Society was both an organization and a record label.

Little noticed, and absent from histories and reference works, the Society appears to have been the first publisher of records financed and sold by subscription in the U.S.A.

It was one of several North American societies which were modelled on the gramophone societies of Great Britain, but were fewer in number and shorter-lived than their British counterparts.

The Society issued just four 78 rpm discs, including the only known recording of a highly gifted young Chicago pianist who was murdered soon afterwards. For the Society's discography, see Chicago Gramophone Society discography.

The brainchild of a few ardent enthusiasts, the Chicago Gramophone Society was small and seems not to have survived its leading founder-member's disenchantment with his hobby.

Dates of creation and latest update: see 'Page information' in sidebar.

Antecedents

Societies for the communal enjoyment, study and comparison of talking machine equipment and records were formed early but are still poorly documented; a preliminary account is attempted elsewhere on this site. Some of the earliest known, purely amateur talking machine societies were established in Britain in the first decade of the twentieth century, although it is unwise to make sweeping statements, given the paucity of research in this field. By the mid-1920s, countries in the British Empire were showing an interest in such societies, and the phenomenon began to be discussed and imitated in North America not much later.

The main catalyst for this was the launch in 1923 of the first British magazine aimed not at the gramophone trade but at consumers, The Gramophone, which soon had subscribers in the British Empire and North America. The magazine's advocacy for and detailed coverage of British gramophone societies inspired the formation of societies abroad, notably in Japan. The Boston Gramophone Society appears to have been the first in North America, formed in the autumn of 1925; unusually, it incorporated the British term in its name instead of the American 'phonograph', surely a nod to its British models, although, by the end of 1926, the Society had changed its name to reflect American usage. By this time, too, Boston could boast a home-grown magazine, The Phonograph Monthly Review, clearly modelled on The Gramophone, and determined to aid and abet the formation of similar societies across the US (Boston's society and the new magazine shared some personnel).

It was into this seemingly burgeoning movement that the Chicago Gramophone Society emerged. In one respect, though, it had no known antecedent in the USA: publishing. Previous American publishers of small-circulation recordings of classical repertoire operated either on a fully commercial, retail basis (e.g. Gianni Bettini) or as private, non-commercial (and sometimes unauthorized) documentary recordists (e.g. Lionel Mapleson).

The Society did have a direct antecedent abroad: the National Gramophonic Society (N.G.S.) of Great Britain. Despite its name, the N.G.S. was not really an offshoot of the gramophone society movement, more an attempt to circumvent the limitations of the commercial record market, on the part of an impulsive, entrepreneurial outsider, the novelist and founding editor of The Gramophone, Compton Mackenzie. In late 1923, Mackenzie took a step without known precedent in the gramophone business: he began soliciting subscriptions with a view to financing premiere recordings of complete works, to be issued to future members in limited editions; in late 1924, his bold plan came to fruition as the N.G.S. distributed its first discs. As a subsidiary activity of Mackenzie's magazine, the Society was able to publicize itself in its pages, which carried the news of its formation and pioneering activities across the English-speaking world. In Chicago, one talking machine journalist took this news, somewhat optimistically, as evidence of 'A Great Movement', agitated for a US equivalent and would soon found a phonograph society in his home city.

But it would fall to outsiders, again, to transplant Mackenzie's radical idea onto American soil.

Formation

The first known mention of the Society's existence was published in October 1926, in the inaugural issue of The Phonograph Monthly Review. Its name had clearly not yet been settled, as the report was titled 'Chicago Phonograph Society'. The author, Vories Fisher, who was introduced elsewhere in the magazine, intimated that for some time past there had been

'a small group of friends who, because of their interest in music and, because of their devotion to and interest in recorded music have fallen together into a very natural society where they have discussed new records – new machines [sic] in a most informal way. But their greatest activity has been the giving of concerts to each other in a "mock" formal way.'

Somewhat confusingly, Fisher did not unequivocally identify the group as the nucleus of the society, but only implied this. He also stated that

'The Chicago Phonograph [sic] Society has encountered some difficulties in gaining the publicity that would give it the firm start that it knows is possible in a city of such extended musical taste as Chicago. It feels that with the advent of the Phonograph Monthly Review things will become easier through the great assistance of this medium.'

Nor was the Society named in a further report, written by Dorothy B. Fisher, wife of Vories, and published a month later. Its chronology was vague, too:

'During the past winter we have been giving concerts on the phonograph that have proved very interesting, not only to ourselves, but also to those whom we had room enough to invite.'

It might be assumed that 'the past winter' was that of 1925-26, yet Mrs. Fisher's report described a 'Dorothy and Vories Fisher Symphony Concert' held on 22 October 1926 at an unnamed location - possibly 4928 Blackstone Avenue, the Fishers' Chicago home - and subtitled 'First Program'. (Was 1926 in fact a typographical error? If so, the group was as old as the Boston Gramophone Society, although not formally constituted until a year later.) Her account (lightly fictionalised, perhaps) revealed how the concert was planned so as to please family members and friends - another pointer to the fledgling society's small size and intimate character - and listed the records to be played, of music by Beethoven (Symphony No.2 in D Op.36), Stravinsky (Fireworks Op.4) and Wagner (orchestral excerpts from Parsifal, Götterdämmerung and Die Walküre). Most of the performers were not named, but other details (record labels, relative date of issue) allow them to be identified.

A little over two weeks after this phonograph concert, on 9 November 1926, the Chicago musical retailer Lyon & Healy made its city-centre premises available for the first open meeting of the Chicago Gramophone Society proper (see below).

The following sections examine in more detail the Society's constitution and activities, including all its documented meetings.

Officers

At the first open meeting of the Chicago Gramophone Society, held on 9 November 1926, the following Officers were elected 'to serve for a short period of time and until the society was in good working order and the members better acquainted with each other':

• President: Vories Fisher
• Vice-President: W.P. Roche
• Secretary-Treasurer: L.J. Harris

As far as is known, these Officers remained in post throughout the Society's short existence.

Vories Fisher

Fisher's duties as President were never defined in print, but he was undoubtedly the Society's prime mover and leading member. He addressed all but one of its open meetings, and enthusiastically promoted it in The Phonograph Monthly Review. Nominally, the Society's Secretary-Treasurer was L.J. Harris, but would-be subscribers to its records were directed to apply to Fisher, at 208 South LaSalle St. for the first issue, and at 105 West Adams Street for the second - both, presumably, Fisher's business addresses. This is not surprising, as Fisher seems to have been the originator of the Society's recording programme and was, with Robert Pollak, its joint underwriter. Thanks to Fisher's brief but prolific spate of contributions to The Phonograph Monthly Review, his engagement with recording in general, and with the Society in particular, are well documented; his journalism is examined further on the page of this site devoted to him, and his role in the Society on this page.

Walter P. Roche

When elected Vice-President, Roche was head of the talking machine and radio departments of Lyon & Healy. Born in 1891 in Elma, Iowa, Roche joined the firm as an errand boy in the first decade of the twentieth century, and over two decades rose to the status of director (appointed June 1926). In early 1928, he was elected vice-president in charge of the wholesale and retail radio and phonograph departments, and all wholesale departments except sheet music.

Roche does not loom large in reports of the Society's activities, and he probably joined not as a private citizen but as a representative of the retail trade, with the aim of cultivating potential customers for his firm. A profile, published in The Talking Machine World in 1925, makes it clear that Roche believed in catering to record-buyers with specialist tastes:

'We find that it is impossible to get a sales force too much informed on the subject-matter of the music they are selling. The popularity of the better class record is increasing steadily, and the recent new methods adopted for building up in the minds of the millions of listeners-in a memory of the names, personalities and styles of great recording artists, are helping to increase vastly the number of those who buy the best music in record form. We work constantly upon new ideas for the better education of our sales force and I may say that one of our most successful methods is found in putting a premium on the sale of the highest-class records. Conditions change, indeed, but the successful methods of retail selling never change.'

Roche's later career has not been investigated in detail, but by 1942 he was working as an air conditioning salesman, and did so until he retired. Roche died in the Chicago satellite of Hines, Illinois on 11 July 1955.

L.J. Harris

For the present, Harris can be identified only tentatively. (He is presumed, unless evidence emerges to the contrary, to have been male.) He signed all reports of Chicago Gramophone Society meetings published in The Phonograph Monthly Review but one; they divulge no information about their author.

Two candidates have been identified.

Seemingly the more likely of the two is Leon Julian Harris, always known as L. Julian or Julian Harris (1901-93). Born in Nebraska, Harris studied law at the University of Chicago from 1920 to 1924, overlapping with the slightly younger Robert Pollak; both were members of the Pi Lambda Phi student fraternity. In addition, Harris appears to have been a member of the University Glee Club. In May 1925, a Julian Harris acted alongside Pollak in a medieval French farce put on at Chicago's Arts Club. By 1926 Harris was employed by a prestigious Chicago law firm as as an attorney; two years later, he apparently had his own practice in Chicago's business district, and thereafter he is attested in census returns and press reports as a general and corporate lawyer, ending his life as a parter in another prestigious firm, D'Ancona and Pflaum. Intriguingly, one 'Julian' is mentioned in Dorothy Fisher's account of a 1926 gramophone recital, quoted above, although no other evidence has been found to suggest he was a friend of the Fishers. More significantly, perhaps, L. Julian Harris was also mentioned in much later press reports as a supporter of classical music in and around Chicago. In 1950, he was apparently Co-Chairman of the Ernest Bloch Festival Association, which was responsible for organizing a 6-day festival in Chicago in honour of the composer's seventy-fifth birthday. Later, Harris was a trustee of and fund-raiser for the Ravinia Festival, and as patron of the Chicago Symphony he accompanied the Orchestra on its first foreign tour, as well as subsequent tours.

The seemingly less likely and less well documented candidate is the L.J. Harris M.D. who was regularly listed as a physician in Chicago business directories, was a member of a medical fraternity at the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery (now Valparaiso University), and President of a local lodge of a Jewish fraternal order. No evidence has been found that Dr. Harris had any interest in classical music.

Confirmation, correction or any further information will be gratefully received.

Membership

Terms and Conditions

Usually, gramophone and phonograph societies charged a small membership fee, to cover the costs of administration and other expenses. They also drew up more or less formal constitutions, statements of intent and/or rules of membership, and publicized them, at meetings, in circulars, in the press, or some combination of these.

Beyond the list of its provisional officers (see above), the Chicago Gramophone Society published no constitution, manifesto, or terms and conditions of membership. Perhaps these would have materialized if it had remained active for longer; perhaps they were circulated privately, although no circulars were mentioned in reports. Thus, it is not known if the Society levied membership dues.

Subscription to the Society's issues was open to all, whether members or not. The Society did not charge non-members more for its records than members, unlike other societies in Japan and, later, New York. In Britain, the National Gramophonic Society had initially restricted its issues to members only, who were obliged to take all issues, at considerable expense; but it gradually relaxed this and other rules when they appeared to militate against increased membership. Perhaps this change, or indeed the complexity of the N.G.S.'s terms and conditions in general, convinced the Chicago Gramophone Society to place no restriction on subscription to its records. More likely, the Society had not formulated a policy by the time of the first issue; in any case, it could probably not have covered the costs of its issues discs if they had been available only to members.

Size and Composition

Because subscription was not restricted to members, the fact that the Society's first issue of 200 sets sold out and, reportedly, was over-subscribed, cannot be taken as an indication of the size of the membership. No figures for this, or for attendance at its meetings, were given in reports of its activities; both were almost certainly small. The report of its first open meeting includes a rationalisation familiar to anyone who reads such articles:

'in view of the inclemency of the weather the attendance was all that could be wished for.'

On the other hand, the Society seems not to have set itself a target for enrolment, unlike the N.G.S., which aimed for a membership of 500 but apparently never succeeded in reaching this total at any one time. Not being reliant on the membership alone to finance its recording programme freed the Chicago Society from the need to grow which beset the N.G.S.

Nor was the make-up of the membership discussed or characterized in reports. (It seems unlikely that a list of members has survived, but again any information will be very gratefully received.) It certainly included both men and women: Mrs. Dorothy B. Fisher was a prominent founder-member, and her account of an informal, pre-formation meeting mentioned another female attendee - possibly fictitious, but suggesting that the presence of women was not unheard of. On the other hand, all three of the Society's provisional officers were men, as was the norm at that time.

The social make-up of the Society's membership can be surmised from several lines of evidence. In Britain, gramophone societies typically drew their members predominantly from the urban lower-middle class, and to a lesser extent (and mainly in London) from the middle class. The N.G.S. was atypical, in that the high cost of membership made it affordable only to the affluent or the very determined; among its known members were several upper-middle class individuals. In the USA, the earliest documented phonograph societies also seem to have had mainly middle-class members, not least because of their focus on classical recordings. Known members were drawn from the professions, business and finance, and the worlds of music and the arts.

The scant evidence about the Chicago Gramophone Society's members tallies with this picture. Frustratingly, almost nothing is known about Mrs. Fisher. Her husband and Robert Pollak, co-sponsors of the Society's two issues, were both stock brokers. Several medical doctors were members of US phonograph societies; if L.J. Harris is correctly identified above, he was another. Walter P. Roche exemplifies a different type of member: as an employee of Lyon & Healy, he was cultivating potential buyers of his company's stock of 'the highest-class records', as he termed them in his 1925 interview, quoted above.

Commercial Partners

The Chicago Gramophone Society owned no premises, and no means of producing records or printed material. It relied on commercial partners to provide these facilities.

Lyon & Healy

Once the Society was fully formed, it met in the Concert Hall of Chicago's prominent musical instrument manufacturer and general music retailer Lyon & Healy, on the corner of Wabash and Jackson Avenues. Lyon & Healy also put machines and records at the Society's disposal for these meetings. In addition, as noted above, a leading employee of Lyon & Healy considered it worth his while to act as one of the Society's officers. It is not known if the Chicago Gramophone Society paid Lyon & Healy for the use of its premises, but this seems unlikely.

The Society's inaugural open meeting was also attended by employees of Brunswick, Columbia and Victor, who reportedly 'extended to the society any help which their respective companies might be able to give'. Such relationships were not unusual; several US phonograph societies had informal ties to record producers and retailers, although some enthusiasts considered such ties problematic. In Britain, too, producers such as the Gramophone Company dispatched lecturers to address gramophone societies, and dealers lent premises, equipment and records for society meetings.

Columbia Personal Record Department

The Society's issues were recorded and pressed by the Columbia Phonograph Company, Inc. The Company provided a 'Personal Record' service which has been little investigated. Thanks to research carried out by Tim Brooks, Columbia's 'Personal Record' rates for 1917-18 are documented. It is not known if, or how much, the rates had changed by 1927, but calculations based on the documented rates yield highly plausible results for the costs of the Society's sessions (see below). The rates relevant to the Chicago Gramophone Society are as follows:

• To record two 12-inch matrices [with one voice and/or instrument] and press three 12-inch double-faced records = $150.00
• To press over 100 and up to 250 12-inch double-faced records = $187.50 for the first 100 + $1.20 each for excess

See below for the Society's pricing of its issues, and for a discussion of their production.

Printers (unknown)

It is not known who manufactured the only known printed item published by the society, a leaflet which accompanied its first issue. No copy has been located.

No leaflet was produced for the second issue, possibly to save costs: whereas the first issue had required only one artist, the second called for three, and the texts of John Alden Carpenter's songs may also have attracted additional publisher's charges.

Meetings

The principal activity of the Chicago Gramophone Society, besides commissioning and publishing records by subscription, was holding meetings, at which members discussed and voted on Society business, heard talks or lectures by members or guests, and listened to gramophone recitals, usually connected with these presentations.

Pre-formation meeting(s)

It is not known how many meetings the embryonic organization held before its first public meeting as the Chicago Gramophone Society. As noted above, a report written by Dorothy B. Fisher mentioned 'concerts on the phonograph' given 'During the past winter' but described and dated just one.

First open meeting

The Society's inaugural meeting was held on 9 November 1926 in the premises of Lyon & Healy. The report in the December 1926 Phonograph Monthly Review was again titled 'Chicago Phonograph Society', this time clearly in error, and contradicting the body of the text, as well as a brief notice in the Chicago Sunday Tribune. While clearly emulating the National Gramophonic Society, the Chicago group did not publicly explain or justify its choice of name, or openly acknowledge its model - though its founder did mention it once in passing. Possibly this debt was made clear in the meeting's opening address, given by Vories Fisher, and titled

'"The History and Purpose of This and Kindred Societies," in which he set forth in general what the gramophone societies had accomplished in England and what this society intends to accomplish here. Mr. Fisher presented some very interesting ideas on gramophone programs and on a public subscription foreign record library, which will in all probability elicit further discussion at the next meeting of the society.'

Exactly what the Society intended to accomplish was not spelled out in the report; and there was no mention of issuing records. Fisher's talk was followed by a gramophone concert, after which Fisher mooted 'a public subscription foreign record library'. The latter proposal, which very much reflected Fisher's interests, was never again mentioned in reports of the Society's meetings or in Fisher's known writings.

Alongside its report of this meeting, the magazine printed another, announcing the formation of a second society in the city, the Chicago Phonograph Art Society. Like its sibling, this was the brainchild of a Chicago couple, William and Elizabeth (known as Bess) Braid White. The following month, the Phonograph Art Society's second report to the magazine carried a statement of its 'Declaration of Principles', including the following item, which clearly reflected William Braid White's preoccupation with the British gramophone society movement:

'4. The Society recognizes gratefully the pioneer work done by the National Gramophonic Society of Great Britain in organizing groups of music loving men and women throughout the world into Societies of which the aims are similar to those of the Phonograph Art Society of Chicago; and while desiring to maintain its own individuality intact, wishes to be affiliated with the N.G.S., and to assist in every practical way the valuable and unique work of publishing in record form music otherwise unobtainable in that form.'

The report named two women as having been present at its founding meeting on 30 November 1926, and three as having voted by proxy.

Second open meeting

At this meeting of the Chicago Gramophone Society, again held at Lyon & Healy on 13 December 1926, 'by-laws of the Society were adopted'; these were not published. The main event of the evening was a long talk on Hugo Wolf, given by Mr. Robert Pollak, illustrated with both records and live performances by a young local pianist, Marion Roberts, then on the threshold of a promising career. Pollak's talk and musical programme were printed in full in The Phonograph Monthly Review.

Before Pollak began his talk, 'it was decided to invite the cooperation of the Chicago Phonograph Art Society'; an open letter of invitation to the new group was included in the Secretary's report. The following day, 14 December, Vories Fisher attended a meeting of the Phonograph Art Society and reiterated the invitation in person. There would be some cooperation between the two bodies, but they did not merge; perhaps the social ties which underlay each group trumped their shared tastes.

Third open meeting

The main business at Lyon & Healy on 18 January 1927 was a talk, given by Vories Fisher, on the life and music of Modest Musorgsky. It was illustrated with recordings of excerpts from the opera Boris Godunov and was printed in the March 1927 number of The Phonograph Monthly Review.

This meeting also brought an important development: before his talk, Fisher

'told the Society about the private recording of the Caesar [sic] Franck Prelude, Choral and Fugue by Miss Marion Roberts which he and Mr. Robert Pollak are underwriting. Mr. Fisher announced that only a few more subscriptions would be accepted, as the edition will be limited, and that the subscription list would then be closed. Upon motion duly made, seconded and carried it was resolved that Messrs. Fisher and Pollak be authorized to have this new recording issued under the label of The Chicago Gramophone Society.'

The Society's first issue was duly announced in the February number of the Review, which fixed the price at $5 per set and the projected print run at 150 sets, claiming proudly and apparently correctly,

'This is, as far as we know, the first attempt to issue privately in this country any records that are made for the express purpose of suiting the taste of the record collector and connoisseur. They are not being put out with the idea of profit behind them at all, but rather as an attempt to start an interest in this country such as there is in England, in private recordings of what is generally considered the better class of music.'

The British model being invoked was that of the National Gramophonic Society, which since late 1924 had been commissioning complete recordings of music new to disc. Likewise, the Chicago Society's projected issue comprised a complete work never previously recorded.

Fourth open meeting

According to the Secretary's very brief report of the meeting held at Lyon & Healy on 21 February 1927, the musical programme consisted of a comparison of 'of new piano recordings of the various recording companies, after which a general discussion was had as to the relative merits of each.' Before that,

'The business meeting was devoted to a discussion of whether or not the Society should endeavor to increase its membership. It was the consensus of opinion that this should be done to a small extent, and it was therefore decided to endeavor to do so by personal solicitation.'

This decision is discussed below, in the section on the Society's Marketing and Publicity.

Fifth open meeting

On 24 March 1927, the Chicago Gramophone Society and Phonograph Art Society held a joint meeting at Lyon & Healy, commemorating the centenary of Beethoven's death. Vories Fisher gave an illustrated talk 'on the improvement in Beethoven's orchestral records under the new [i.e. electrical] method of recording', after which members listened to a recorded talk by the conductor Walter Damrosch on the funeral march (second movement) from the Symphony No.3 in E flat Op.55 ('Eroica'), set down on disc just weeks before and donated to the Society by Frederick N. Sard, Director of the Beethoven Centennial Committee. Finally, Robert Pollak gave a further illustrated talk on Beethoven's string quartets. (In addition to the usual report in The Phonograph Monthly Review, this meeting was also briefly reported in the Music Trade Review.)

After this, the Society is not known to have held any further meetings. The reasons for the cessation of its activities are examined below.

Publications

The only known publications of the Chicago Gramophone Society are:

• two issues of two twelve-inch records each, both sold as sets (the records were not sold singly) although not in bound albums, and
• one printed leaflet, accompanying the first issue of records.

The Society's first issue of records was authorized by its members in January 1927, announced in February, recorded in April, distributed in late May or early June, and reviewed in July 1927. Announced as a limited edition of 150 sets, it was pressed in a run of 200 sets, according to the labels of surviving copies. It consisted of the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue by César Franck, the work's gramophone premiere, performed complete by Marion Roberts on two records, accompanied by a leaflet. The latter's author is unknown (it may have been Robert Pollak), as are its contents, except for a tribute to the pianist, who had died by the time the set was issued. Presumably, the rest of the text discussed the composer and work, and possibly also set out the aims, activities and rules of the Society. The issue was reported 'long sold out' by January 1928. The recording has been transferred by the British Library and published in a post on its Sound and vision blog.

The second issue was reported in November 1927 to have been delayed by 'an over-crowded schedule at the recording studios'; it was recorded in December 1927, but only in January 1928 was a definitive announcement of its contents made. Pressed again in an edition of 200, and distributed in January or February 1928, it consisted of seven songs, performed by the mezzo-soprano Mina Hager and two pianists. The first record contained John Alden Carpenter's Water-Colors, four settings of antique Chinese poems in English translations, with the composer at the piano. The second record contained two songs by Hugo Wolf one one side, Auch kleine Dinge and Nimmersatte Liebe, and Blindenklage Op.56 No.2 by Richard Strauss on the other; the pianist was Lora Orth Kimsey. No leaflet accompanied this issue.

Full details of these records, including references, are given on the discographical pages devoted to the first and second issues.

The Society does not seem to have published a prospectus, catalogue or any other printed matter.

Artists and Repertoire

Four artists recorded for the Chicago Gramophone Society:

• the composer John Alden Carpenter
• the mezzo-soprano Mina Hager
• the pianist Lora Orth Kimsey
• the pianist Marion Mahan Roberts

The Society did not divulge how these artists or their repertoire were selected. By contrast, the N.G.S. opened its repertoire planning to public scrutiny. It engaged an Advisory Committee to propose works for recording, and submitted these to the members' vote (not all winning works were recorded, for various reasons). It publicized this procedure, a significant (if burdensome) innovation, in editorials, notices and advertisements. The N.G.S. did not give members a say in the selection of artists, but in the main relied on its two most prolific performers to act as 'fixers'.

The Chicago Gramophone Society had no advisory committee and no known fixers. It may seem foolhardy to reconstruct an artist and repertoire policy from just four 78 rpm records. But there are grounds for believing - or speculating, given the loss or inaccessibility of so many documents - that the Society wished to celebrate the musicians of its home. Chicago's leading composer made his only issued commercial recording as a pianist for the Society, a fact which speaks for itself. Mina Hager had not only forged a considerable reputation there over the previous decade (although she had moved to New York in 1925), she was also a regular recital partner of Carpenter. Marion Roberts was a local pianist, reportedly considered by her professors to share 'the biggest talent of them all' with her sister, and to be 'on the threshold of an extraordinary musical career'. Only Kimsey had no known connection with Chicago. A further detail seems to support this hypothesis: the striking, 'jazzy' design of the Society's record label, discussed below.

On the face of it, the mixed repertoire these artists recorded is less easy to account for. But it can almost all be linked to the tastes, interests and priorities of the two members who sponsored the Society's issues, Robert Pollak and Vories Fisher; and to do so requires discussing these issues in the wrong order. Fisher was the keener record collector and a native Chicagoan; Pollak had grown up in Indiana but was now deeply immersed in Chicago's life, both financial - like Fisher, he was a stock and commodity broker - and musical: a trained pianist, Pollak was music critic of The Chicagoan, a recently launched magazine which aimed 'to give expression to Chicagoans' thoughts, to assure the amusement and diversion of Our Public.' And among the figures who loomed largest in Chicago's amusements and diversions were John Alden Carpenter and his wife, Rue Winterbotham Carpenter (1876-1931), a well-regarded interior designer and leading light in the city's artistic and charitable circles. Pollak had reservations about some of Carpenter's music: he had been none too impressed by Carpenter's ballet Skyscrapers at its Chicago premiere, though he later published a favourable profile of Carpenter, based on an interview with him. Still, it would have seemed natural (and politic) to approach Chicago's best-known composer with a proposal to record his music for the Society.

How ambitious was that proposal? Did the Society initially envisage an all-Carpenter album, perhaps of two discs, coupling songs, a genre in which Carpenter was noted and prolific (if still little recorded by 1927), with instrumental music, none of which had ever been on disc? (Marion Roberts had a piano work of his in her repertoire, probably the Polonaise américaine from his 2 Piano Pieces.) Unless correspondence between Carpenter and the Society comes to light, or any unpublished recordings of his music for the Society are documented, this cannot be answered. In the event, the Society issued only one work by Carpenter, taking up a single 12-inch disc: the Water-Colors for voice and piano. That choice is easily explained, if Carpenter nominated Mina Hager as singer from the start: in 1917, with the composer at the keyboard, she had sung the premiere of his new version for orchestra and piano (which would have been too expensive for the Society to record). This was the start of an artistic partnership which would last until Carpenter's death. Pollak would hardly have objected to Carpenter's choice; in any case, he had heard and praised Hager, if in very different repertoire.

Perhaps the Society did originally plan an all-Carpenter album, but abandoned this plan, for whatever reason; or perhaps it had always envisaged a mixed issue of songs by Carpenter and other composers. In either case, to continue the pattern set by its first issue, it needed a second disc, for which it was only natural to retain Hager as the singer. The songs she recorded spoke directly to the interests of Pollak and Fisher. At the Society's second meeting, in December 1926, Pollak had given a lengthy talk on Hugo Wolf, in which he made very clear that he admired his songs above those of all other composers. Yet they were still relatively poorly represented on record, so it must have seemed natural to use the Society's second issue to make a dent in that lacuna. Is this why Hager apparently began singing Wolf's songs in concert only in 1927, just two months before the recording sessions for the Society's second issue? On the other hand, she had performed Richard Strauss's songs since at least 1922 - and they were a special enthusiasm of Vories Fisher (who, by his own confession, was not fond of Wolf). If Pollak nominated Wolf for one side, it would have seemed fair to let Fisher nominate some Strauss for the other.

As for Hager's pianist, Marion Roberts would have been a natural choice, had she lived (although she seems never to have performed in concert with Hager). But by the time Hager came to record, Roberts was dead; her death may even have put paid to a plan to record a piano work by Carpenter. The first, unsuccessful sessions for the Wolf and Strauss disc were held on the same day as those for Carpenter's Water-Colors; but the composer was either too busy or, more likely, unwilling to stay on for the other songs. The pianist for both Wolf and Strauss sessions, Lora Orth Kimsey, had no known contact with Hager, any more than she did than with Chicago; most likely, she was supplied by the Columbia 'Personal Record' department, which could have had her on its books as a versatile accompanist, equally at home in the classics and at evangelical song meetings. Kimsey's name was left off the labels of the issued disc, as house accompanists' names often were.

If Roberts could not take part in the Society's second issue (which might have been planned first), how did she become involved in the first? Robert Pollak's talk on Wolf at the Society's December 1926 meeting had been illustrated with both recordings and live performances. The latter were entrusted to Roberts, who played songs by Schubert, Brahms and Wolf (apparently without a singer), in support of Pollak's contention that Wolf was the finest song composer of the three. No surviving source confirms the sequence of events which led to Roberts being engaged for this talk, and then for the Society's first issued recording. She would certainly have been known to Pollak, having made a reputation for herself in and around Chicago since 1920, in concert and on air; a few months after the talk, he would describe her sister, the violinist and composer Stella Roberts, as 'very, very talented'. Were he and Fisher already looking for a pianist and trying her out at the meeting, or did her playing make such an impression that the recording crystallized around her? The work she would record, Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue, was exactly the kind of repertoire she would have studied at the Ecole normale in Paris, and she may have proposed it herself. It would certainly have found a ready taker in Vories Fisher, who contributed a regular column to The Phonograph Monthly Review, titled 'Is Your Favorite Work Recorded?' In the instalment of January 1927, Fisher had noted,

'While on the subject of large size works for piano record sets, we might suggest a few more compositions, many of which might not be suitable for issue today, but which will undoubtedly be recorded eventually. Franck's Prelude, Aria, and Finale, and his Prelude, Choral, and Fugue are widely played and admired.'

(Fisher may have written those words before the decision to engage Roberts and/or record Franck had been taken.) Whatever the case, the choice of work and artist were apparently made in private, without involving other members, because at the Society's next meeting, in January 1927 (see above), Fisher informed the gathering of the forthcoming recording and tabled a motion to have it issued by the Society, which was duly passed. This was perhaps a nod to the N.G.S.'s practice of inviting members to vote on works proposed for recoding, but only a nod; no alternative was apparently on offer. Seemingly, then, the Society's artist and repertoire policy was essentially the private domain of Pollak and Fisher. They of course took a financial risk in underwriting both issues, but also showed considerable resourcefulness in engaging Chicago artists to record music of widely diverse origins (Belgian, American and Austro-German). If the Society had survived longer and attracted more members, perhaps others would have played a part in planning further recordings.

Besides involving members in choosing repertoire, the National Gramophonic Society had adopted two other important policies, countering two commercial practices which especially irked buyers of long classical works on record: 'cuts' and 'duplications'. From the start, the N.G.S. pledged to record all works (except 'fillers') without cuts, and for the first time. The Chicago Society adopted the same policy, but apparently did not feel the need to be as vocal about it as the N.G.S. was. Whereas 'duplication' was still, and would long remain, a bugbear of record-buyers, by 1927 'cuts' in classical works were rapidly becoming the exception, having been the norm for much of the acoustical era. When announcing its first issue, the Society stressed that the Franck had never before been recorded, but did not state that it would be complete; quite reasonably, it probably assumed that by now members, as well as readers of The Phonograph Monthly Review, took this for granted. Announcing its second issue, the Society made no mention of completeness or newness. Again, it was reasonable to assume that Carpenter's songs were new to disc, but it is perhaps surprising that the Society did not stress that the songs by Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss were also receiving their gramophone premieres. All seven songs on the two discs were also recorded complete.

Fees

Unfortunately, no currently known source reveals what fees the Society paid its artists to record.

Production

The Chicago Gramophone Society owned no production facilities. Its recordings were made by Columbia's Personal Record Department in New York, where company personnel would have been in charge of all sessions, and pressed by Columbia, presumably at its plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The 'recording operators' who made the Society's recordings were:

• Raymond ('Ray') Anton Gloetzner, for the first session (Franck) on 11 April 1927
• Clyde Dunford Emerson, for the second (Carpenter, Wolf, Strauss) and third (Wolf, Strauss) sessions on 5 and 12 December 1927

Did the Society's members play any role in producing these recordings, beyond commissioning them? The sole contemporary comment bearing on this question was made by Vories Fisher in his column 'Recorded Remnants' in August 1927, after the first pair of discs had been issued. It is frustratingly vague:

'I must admit they would never have been the success that they are had it not been for my good friend Mr. Pollak who did in reality more work than myself.'

It is not known if Fisher or Robert Pollak were present at the sessions, where decisions had to be made about which takes to process and press. Technical defects (e.g. over-modulation of the recorded signal) could have been picked up by the operators during sessions, and any affected takes scrapped; but it seems unlikely that Columbia staff would have pronounced on artistic matters. Of the recordings' co-sponsors, only Pollak had the technical musical expertise required to make such judgements: he was a trained pianist and a composer, as well as a professional music critic. There is no evidence that he travelled to New York. But he could audition test pressings at home - as could the artists.

Production and processing of tests were meticulously documented on Columbia's matrix cards; yet this information is as tantalizing as it is informative. Marion Roberts recorded two takes of each of the four sides of the Franck Prelude, Chorale and Fugue on 11 April 1927; the next day, all eight matrices were shipped to the Columbia factory for processing. Test pressings were 'received' (presumably, at the Personal Record Department in New York) on 16, 20 and 21 April; all were 'reported' (i.e. assessments made and logged of their technical and/or artistic quality) on 4 May. Unfortunately, the cards do not state who made these assessments, or where. Roberts sailed for France on 13 April, and during the night of 22-23 April was murdered in the countryside near Paris. She cannot have auditioned any test pressings; but she could have pronounced on takes in the studio, immediately after recording them. Three sides of the Franck were issued from takes -2, including the second, on which can be heard two 'noises off', the first very intrusive and seemingly caused by an object in the studio falling over, the second less so. Normally, one might expect such audible accidents to cause a take to be rejected. But this side includes the start of the Chorale with its tricky pianissimo crossing of left hand over right. Did Roberts feel she had given the better performance of that notorious passage in take -2, and insist on it being issued, despite the noises (which, in her concentration, she might not have noticed)? The third side, meanwhile, was the only one to be issued from take -1; this side, too, includes hand-crossings and other technical difficulties, and take -1 could, again, have been nominated by Roberts as the better played. But the takes to be issued could equally have been selected by Robert Pollak, after auditioning the test pressings; though it would have taken some nerve to brave the ire of subscribers, who might well object to such noises off, as happened to the National Gramophonic Society (whose issues were, in any case, somewhat beset by technical problems and accidents).

Mina Hager's sessions point to a similar conclusion. Two takes of all four sides were recorded on Monday 5 December 1927 and the matrices shipped the same day; tests were received on Wednesday 7 December, and could have been posted to Chicago immediately, for Carpenter to audition, while Hager could have done so in New York. Curiously, the tests were not 'reported' until 28 December, yet on Monday 12 December a second session was held at which two further takes of the Wolf and Strauss songs were recorded. Clearly, it had been decided in the interim that at least one of each take of the Carpenter songs was good enough to issue (both sides from take -2). Was the second session arranged immediately after the first, or after the tests had been auditioned? The latter alternative left very little time for the studio to be rebooked; indeed, a notice in the November 1927 Phonograph Monthly Review had stated that 'an over-crowded schedule at the recording studios has necessitated the postponement for a few weeks of the making of these records', suggesting that the second session may have been booked in advance as a precaution. In any case, someone was unhappy with the Wolf and Strauss sides recorded on 5 December, and that someone was most probably Hager. A report on all tests was only logged on 28 December - but that does not mean that the takes to be issued had not already been selected, as all tests had to be auditioned for possible technical and manufacturing faults.

Label Design

A further mystery is the identity of the designer of the Chicago Gramophone Society's record label. At this period, Columbia's standard Personal Record labels were very old-fashioned in appearance; the label of Personal Record 50018-P has the same design as the labels of considerably earlier Columbia Personal Records; it surely dated from the official launch of the Department in 1915, if not earlier. By contrast, the Society's label has a strikingly modern 'art deco' design, which incorporates a small, 'jazzy' anthropomorphic monogram cleverly composed of the Society's initials, and strongly projects the Society's presumed aim of celebrating its home city (see above). Unfortunately, it is not signed.

The person most likely to have commissioned the design is Robert Pollak. It is reminiscent of the work of at least three artists who were employed by The Chicagoan - Pollak was then its music critic - and who occasionally illustrated Pollak's articles. But Professor Neil Harris, who has made a study of The Chicagoan and its artists, does not recognize the hand of any specific Chicagoan artist in the design, and has characterized it as 'somewhat conventionalized'. It is also possible, if less likely, that Vories Fisher or Dorothy Fisher commissioned the label; he later became a photographer and may already have had an interest or involvement in graphic and visual design, while she had worked in advertising for some years.

The labels of the Society's first issue were designed to be numbered; copies are not common, but none of those known carry a number in the space provided. Reportedly, they were also to have been signed by Marion Roberts, but there is no obvious space for a signature; perhaps the design was only finalised after the pianist's untimely death in April 1927. The labels of the second issue did not allow for numbering, and no mention was made of any artists' signatures.

Pricing

In 1927, the Chicago Gramophone Society sold its records at $2.50 each. This was a high price. Typically, the leading US producers, Victor and Columbia, charged $1.50 per disc for 12-inch records of classical repertoire; Victor's premium Red Seal records cost $2 each, as did Brunswick's 12-inch classical issues.

The Society was probably not aiming to be exclusive; this price was dictated by its own costs. At Columbia's 1917 prices for Personal Records (see above), to have each of its discs recorded and pressed would have cost the Society $397.50 for runs of 150, or $457.50 for runs of 200. Originally, the Society announced that the first set would be pressed in an edition of 150; even without adding unknown amounts for inflation over the intervening decade, and the artist's recording fee, one can see that this would have left the Society out of pocket. The edition was quietly enlarged to 200.

Although the Society's exact outlay will probably never be known, these figures broadly corroborate its claim that the records were 'not being put out with the idea of profit behind them at all'.

Marketing and Publicity

The Chicago Gramophone Society engaged in little visible marketing or publicity for itself or its publications.

The National Gramophonic Society was able to use The Gramophone, published by its parent company, as a mouthpiece, placing announcements, reports, reviews and other propaganda in its pages, presumably at no cost. Vories Fisher clearly hoped that Boston's newly-launched counterpart to the British magazine would fulfil the same function for Mrs. Fisher's and his group:

'The Chicago Phonograph [sic] Society has encountered some difficulties in gaining the publicity that would give it the firm start that it knows is possible in a city of such extended musical taste as Chicago. It feels that with the advent of the Phonograph Monthly Review things will become easier and things that at first appeared impossible will be found to be well within the bonds [sic] of reason through the great assistance of this medium.'

This hope was well founded: The Phonograph Monthly Review made itself an advocate and forum for the American gramophone society movement, publishing news and reports of the Chicago and other groups' activities, and it remains the richest source of information about the Society. It also published the only substantial reviews of its two issues (see below).

What were the 'difficulties in gaining [...] publicity' the Fishers had encountered? It is unclear whether they were unable to devote time and money to publicity, or were unwilling to do so. No paid advertisements for the Chicago Gramophone Society have been located. Was the mainstream press indifferent to such a venture? Was overt marketing abhorrent to middle-class sensibilities, too reminiscent of the practices of the commercial industry? The National Gramophonic Society, certainly, was reluctant to advertise itself outside The Gramophone, and from the start relied on members to enrol friends. Strikingly, this position was echoed by members of the Chicago Gramophone Society who attended its penultimate meeting (see above).

The only known notice of the Society published outside The Phonograph Monthly Review, and which probably resulted from a press release or other communication, is a brief mention of the Society's forthcoming inaugural open meeting in the Chicago Sunday Tribune of 7 November 1926. It is possible that other such items, published in small or local publications, may yet be unearthed. Perhaps, too, Lyon & Healy, which placed its Concert Hall at the Society's disposal and seconded a prominent employee as the Society's Vice-President, made some effort to help spread the word among its affluent clientele. Unfortunately, the company was sold several times from the 1950s to the 1980s and its business archive has disappeared.

The National Gramophonic Society also promoted its issues in a way which, today, would blur the line between editorial matter and advertising: writers connected with the N.G.S., either directly (as members of its Advisory Committee) or indirectly (as members and advocates), wrote 'analytical notes' on works issued by the Society which were published in the reviews section of The Gramophone. A notice of the Chicago Gramophone Society's second issue, written by Robert Pollak and published in his regular musical column in The Chicagoan, made no mention of his involvement in its production, and can be considered an example of such 'advertorial', even if it would probably not have offended sensibilities at the time. If Pollak did not also promote the first issue in this way, this was perhaps only because it sold out without his help.

Unlike the N.G.S., the Chicago Society had no regular recording programme to fund, so its policy had no immediate financial consequences; but, as the Society it may have helped to shorten the Society's life.

Reception

Still little investigated, in the mid-1920s classical record criticism in the US was apparently in its infancy. There were very few press outlets for the Chicago Gramophone Society's issues; not surprisingly, The Phonograph Monthly Review was the only publication to cover them at any length:

• 'The First Recording by an American Phonograph Society', The [Music Lovers'] Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.1 No.10, July 1927, p.442
• 'Special', Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.2 No.8, May 1928, pp.306-15

Like much of the magazine's content, these unsigned reviews were probably written by Robert D. Darrell (1903-88).

Operating on a tight budget, and apparently not seeking to increase its membership significantly, the Society probably did not send its issues to any other publication. So far, only one mention of them by a writer not connected with the Society has been located in a US periodical, the long-running New York-based weekly The Outlook. With good reason: as the author noted, records such as the Society's posed a problem for publications aimed at consumers who might want to buy them:

'It would be out of place in this department to include among the reviews mention of a privately issued set of records. But perhaps my readers will forgive me if I should mention it separately as an interesting example of the progress of recorded music in this country.'

Almost certainly for the same reason, The Gramophone, which was sent a copy of the Society's first issue, did not review it.

As discussed above, The Phonograph Monthly Review was also the only consumer publication to report the Society's activities. But they were also mentioned in two US trade periodicals, The Talking Machine World and The Music Trade Review. A single reference in the former formed part of a wider campaign waged by a member of the magazine's staff: British-born William Braid White (1878-1959) had written several articles promoting the British gramophone society model to the US record trade, and so was understandably eager to report local progress on that front. He was also the founding President of Chicago's second group, the Phonograph Art Society. As it happened, on 24 March 1927, White performed at an event reported by The Music Trade Review: also a champion of the player-piano, he played in a player-piano recital commemorating the centenary of Beethoven's death; and the following day, to celebrate the same anniversary, the Chicago Phonograph Art Society and the Gramophone Society held a joint meeting at Lyon & Healy's hall, whose raison d'être was, clearly, to promote the anniversary products of the Columbia company.

That, at present, is almost the full extent of the Society's documented reception in the press. (Its recordings were very occasionally mentioned in later years, notably in reviews of subsequent recordings of the works it had been the first to issue on disc.) But, remarkably, the Society and its first issue were also noticed in a Brazilian newspaper:

• 'Pingos de cêra...', in 'Discos e machinas falantes', O Paiz [Rio de Janeiro], Anno XLIII, No.15,624, Sunday 31 July 1927, p.14

The uncredited writer had probably not heard the records, but was relaying information garnered from The Phonograph Monthly Review; this practice, common at the time, can be observed in the Australian press of the period, for instance.

Decline

In April 1927, The Phonograph Monthly Review noted that Mr. and Mrs. Fisher would soon leave on a voyage to Europe. In June, the magazine reported that 'The advent of the summer season finds a few of the Phonograph Societies suspending meetings until September, but for the most part meetings and concerts are continued in a less formal manner in the private homes of different members.' With the Fishers abroad, it seems unlikely that the Chicago Gramophone Society met over the summer, although its first issue was distributed around June. By late July, the couple had probably returned; in August, the (inconsistently) renamed Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review published Vories Fisher's account of their trip, which included a visit to the offices of The Gramophone in London and meetings with its London Editor Christopher Stone, also Secretary of the N.G.S.

In the autumn of 1927, US record societies resumed their meetings, although in November The Phonograph Monthly Review observed that

'The Phonograph Societies are unexpectedly slow in getting under way; so far we have heard only from those in Philadelphia, Providence, New York, and Minneapolis. However, the season is barely begun yet, and next month will undoubtedly see full activities resumed.'

But no reports materialized of any further meetings of the Chicago Gramophone Society. Instead, plans were announced for a second set of records by Christmas 1927, but this was delayed for many months. In May 1928, the Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review published a detailed review. With this, the Chicago Gramophone Society disappeared from view. In October 1928, the Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review reported,

'The Phonograph Societies are beginning to display signs of real life as the season is about to open. Except from Chicago (which is as silent as the grave), we have word of the activities of all the old societies and plans for several new ones.'

This was the last mention in the magazine of the Society as an organization. Vories Fisher had contributed regularly to the Review since its inception, but published nothing after May 1928. Perhaps significantly, in the final instalment of his column 'Recorded Remnants', Fisher had written,

'I have found that my interest in phonograph records has somewhat cooled – perhaps not waned because I am still buying just as many records as before, but I do not find myself rushing to get them as I did a few years ago. [...] I do not get the excitement that I once did over ordering from a long way off something very choice once every two or three months'

Fisher's engagement with records, and its sudden end, are discussed further on the page devoted to him. The Fishers, especially Vories, appear to have been the main force behind the Chicago Gramophone Society, which was neither large enough nor firmly enough established to survive Vories' loss of interest. Robert Pollak, who did not contribute to The Phonograph Monthly Review, was either unable or not motivated to sustain the Society without the Fishers.

Archive

The Chicago Gramophone Society left no known archive.

Conclusion

The Chicago Gramophone Society was highly atypical in producing subscription recordings, but otherwise it closely resembled known North American classical record societies. All were probably small, founded and headed by enthusiasts who were strongly motivated (and, possibly, somewhat domineering), and none seems to have survived for very long. The Phonograph Art Society of Chicago also suspended meetings for the summer of 1927; that fall, nothing more was heard of it. Of the ten or so other societies whose activities were reported in The Phonograph Monthly Review, only one, the Winnipeg Gramophone Society, was still active in 1930. It may seem foolhardy to draw conclusions from the evidence of just one magazine; still, the Review had appointed itself the incubator and mouthpiece of the record society movement in America. At first, it regularly printed news of projected and newly-formed societies and extensive reports of the meetings and leading personalities of existing societies. But over time, as in its model The Gramophone, society news and reports fell off in frequency and extent. In the December 1927 Review, an unsigned editorial note admitted that,

'Members of American phonograph societies have often expressed their wonder over the successful and smooth running British societeis [sic]. Discouraged sometimes by the efforts necessary to overcome the difficulties of gathering and keeping an American society together, they marvel at the apparent ease with which the British organizations seem to progress and develop. Perhaps the reason may be partly due to the fact that across the water programs and activities of the societies are more entertaining, better suited to hold the members together and to attract new enthusiasts.'

Perhaps so; but another reason was that British and American societies, though superficially similar, were fundamentally different. The British ones were mainly urban gatherings of lower middle-class hobbyists with an overriding interest in mechanics and reproduction; the American societies documented in The Phonograph Monthly Review were middle-class, displaying a penchant for musical appreciation, and some delight in showing off hard-to-obtain rarities. In the early 1920s, some lovers of recorded classical music (besides opera) clearly felt isolated, and neglected by record companies and local dealers. In the later 1920s, as the industry began to cater to them - by making domestic recordings using new electrical technology, and issuing or importing foreign recordings - the urge to band together for reassurance, and to share information and records, dwindled.

The Chicago society was almost certainly the creation of Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, and if Mrs. Fisher showed delight in the social aspect of communal listening and discussion, Vories Fisher was, by his own admission, a collector drawn by the all too familiar lures of completeness and rarity. Allied to his entrepreneurial bent (he was a financier), these traits made him a natural 'early adopter' of the subscription model pioneered by the N.G.S. If not for Fisher's sudden disenchantment with record collecting, and an apparent increase in his professional commitments in early 1928, he might have made a go of his cottage venture; Chicago would probably have continued to provide enough subscribers to make pressing runs of 200 break even. But it is difficult, even now, to run a one-man band. And when Fisher did turn his back on the Society, there was nobody else ready to take on his role. Pollak was a music-lover first, and a record-buyer second (or even third or fourth; Pollak was also a composer and music critic, as well as a financier like Fisher). Tellingly, though, even Lyon & Healy did not take over the operation, as they might easily have done. Quite simply, their main suppliers - Victor, Brunswick, and Columbia - produced more than enough to keep their highbrow customers happy. Small, specialist classical record labels, however they were financed, remained extremely rare in the USA until after World War II, and even then they had a hard time of it.