Biography
Executives have often shaped the classical recording landscape as decisively as performers, since the commercial realities of the business dictate what gets captured and how listeners ultimately encounter it. Goddard Lieberson at Columbia Records stands as a prime illustration. Alongside Walter Legge at Britain’s EMI, he ranked among the most powerful figures guiding the classical recording industry worldwide from the 1940s through the 1960s. Lieberson oversaw or enabled the industry-wide transition from three-minute 78 rpm shellac discs to the 33⅓ rpm long-playing format that transformed classical listening, later extending its reach to jazz and eventually popular music; he directed some of the earliest complete opera recordings made in the United States; he led Columbia through the shift from monaural to stereo, capitalizing on the new technology by launching an intensive re-recording campaign of the standard repertory that elevated the newly appointed New York Philharmonic Music Director Leonard Bernstein to media prominence and expanded classical audiences further; and he essentially created the modern Broadway cast album. Born in England in 1911 to a manufacturer of rubber heels who relocated the family to America in 1915, Lieberson studied at the University of Washington and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. While a student he supported himself as a nightclub pianist and local newspaper music critic. After completing his composition training, he taught privately and produced more than one hundred works by 1939, several performed by orchestras funded through the Works Progress Administration. The instability of teaching and government-supported composition prompted him in 1939 to join Columbia Records as assistant to the director of its Masterworks classical division. His arrival coincided with the Columbia Broadcasting System’s acquisition of the American Record Company, which became Columbia Records, and with an era of expansion fueled by radio’s growth during the 1930s and the network’s cash reserves on the eve of global conflict. Wartime shortages of shellac restricted output between early 1942 and late 1945, severely curtailing releases in blues and country while classical fared better because major labels maintained a sense of cultural obligation to that audience; Columbia’s long-standing contract with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra reinforced this priority. The influx of European musicians fleeing Nazi Europe also proved advantageous. Bruno Walter led the Philharmonic in a 1941 Columbia session that included a fervent, lyrical account of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No. 1. Lieberson signed Joseph Szigeti and Rudolf Serkin, and the label recorded new works by Bartók, Berg, Schoenberg, and Prokofiev then sparsely represented in catalogs. After the war, when shellac constraints eased and audiences sought pleasure rather than mere endurance, Lieberson’s inventive strategies reshaped both Columbia and the wider industry. Long dissatisfied with the four-minute limit of 78 rpm sides, the company, under Lieberson, supported engineer Peter Goldmark’s development of microgroove technology; the resulting 10-inch and 12-inch LPs, introduced in 1948, held fifteen and twenty-two minutes respectively. RCA-Victor countered with the 45 rpm single, sparking a three-year format competition that ended with LPs dominating classical and jazz while 45s prevailed in pop. Lieberson simultaneously secured a Metropolitan Opera contract, enabling Columbia’s first complete opera recording, Puccini’s La Bohème, in 1947, followed by additional full-length operas and lengthy concert works such as Bruno Walter’s 1947 New York Philharmonic account of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. To accelerate consumer adoption, Columbia distributed new 33⅓ players at or below cost through retailers in exchange for LP purchase commitments. Magnetic tape, adopted by the late 1940s, allowed editing and longer continuous takes, further simplifying opera projects. In 1951 Lieberson produced the label’s landmark all-Black-cast recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, staged with theatrical ambience. Beginning in 1949 with Paul Robeson’s Othello, he also documented plays, while his cast-album initiative, launched with 78 rpm versions of Song of Norway and Carousel in 1945, expanded after the LP’s arrival to include Kiss Me, Kate and South Pacific (1949), Guys and Dolls (1951), and the three-disc The Most Happy Fella (1955). Later projects encompassed Rodgers and Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse and the documentary sets The Union and The Confederacy. Elevated to executive vice president in 1949, Lieberson recruited oboist Mitch Miller from Mercury to head Columbia’s pop division; Miller brought Frankie Laine but soon clashed with Frank Sinatra. Promoted to president in 1956, Lieberson oversaw CBS radio and television documentaries narrated by Edward R. Murrow, issued as the I Can Hear It Now series, and the album John Fitzgerald Kennedy … As We Remember Him. Columbia adopted stereo later than RCA-Victor and Decca-London, partly owing to the delayed availability of consumer playback equipment. Once Leonard Bernstein became New York Philharmonic Music Director in 1957, however, the label pursued an aggressive stereo re-recording program that transformed Bernstein into a classical media star and boosted Philharmonic sales beyond those of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. The resulting revenue increases raised musicians’ salaries and extended the season nearly year-round. Bruno Walter’s late-career stereo recordings on the West Coast continued through 1962, Ormandy and the Philadelphia maintained strong sales, and the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell plus the Concertgebouw Orchestra appeared on the Epic subsidiary alongside I Musici. Lieberson also persuaded CBS to finance the original production of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady, securing all rights; the stage run, cast album, and eventual film generated enormous returns. Despite these achievements, Columbia’s self-image as the “Tiffany network” of recording led it to undervalue rock and roll after 1955–1956. While it retained Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Laine, Johnny Cash, Roy Hamilton, the Treniers, and a distinguished jazz roster, it largely missed the youth market until signing Paul Revere & the Raiders, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, the Byrds, and the Cryan’ Shames in the early 1960s. In 1965 Lieberson appointed Clive Davis to revitalize the pop division; Davis succeeded him as president when Lieberson moved to a corporate post. Davis’s departure in a 1973 management upheaval returned Lieberson to the presidency, yet classical and cast projects now competed for resources against a rock division demanding its own profits. He still produced Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, but Bernstein had left Columbia, Pierre Boulez’s recordings sold modestly, and Zubin Mehta’s even less. Lieberson died of cancer in spring 1977, having produced or enabled a catalogue of historic recordings that redefined Columbia Masterworks and the broader recording industry.
Albums