Piatigorsky and Barlow Arrive on a Beam of Light

By 1941, the shellac phonograph records of the time had earned a reputation for being noisy and prone to wear from the heavy tonearms that traversed their grooves.

The Philco company, a leading maker of consumer electronics, thought it had an answer. "Music on a Beam of Light!" it proclaimed. "The pointed steel needle that scrapes music from the record is gone! Instead a rounded jewel that never needs changing floats gently over the record grooves and reflects the music on a light beam from a tiny mirror to a Photo-Electric Cell."

The result? Records last 10 times longer with "glorious purity of tone."

1941 ad

So why didn't this revolution sweep the phonograph industry? In just a few months, the US would be at war, and manufacturers such as Philco would switch from consumer products to defense production. After the war, the company concentrated its efforts on its radio line and other consumer electronics and appliances. The "Beam of Light" was forgotten.

Would this product have become popular absent the coming of war? It's hard to say. However, I would note that hobbyists who have attempted to rejuvenate old Beam of Light phonos have found them to be cantankerous beasts. It's possible that unreliability might have sunk the product in the absence of war.

But let's back up to early 1941 and the introduction of this ill-fated instrument. As part of its promotional activities, Philco began the ad campaign you see at left, and supplied its dealers with a special record that would both demonstrate the phono's wondrous tonal qualities and discuss its many attributes. To do this, it enlisted two presumed experts in sound production: Howard Barlow, conductor of the Columbia Broadcasting Symphony, and Gregor Piatigorsky, the eminent cellist. Or, more likely, Philco enlisted Columbia Records and Columbia enlisted its artists Barlow and Piatigorsky for their testimonials.

The idea was for the each side of the record to begin with a musical excerpt, segue to an artist interview about the phonograph, then conclude with another except.

Gregor Piatigorsky

For Piatigorsky, the musical selections were from his 1940 traversal of Schumann's Fantasiestücke. For Barlow, the music was taken from his 1939 recording of Goldmark's Rustic Wedding Symphony. These excerpts and the commentary were pressed on a 78 disc that was provided to dealers, who were duly warned that the record "is to be destroyed after the demonstration period." Fortunately, at least one merchant disobeyed, the record found its way to Internet Archive 80 years later, and then to this blog.

Howard Barlow with Paul Whiteman

A few more words about the artists: in 1941, Howard Barlow probably would have been the better known of the two musicians because he had been on the radio continuously since 1927. In 1943, he switched from CBS to NBC and the Voice of Firestone show, where he would continue for several more years. He was quite a good conductor - I'll have an example of his art on my other blog soon.

Barlow is now a musical footnote, but Gregor Piatigorsky maintains his reputation as a great cellist. He has appeared on the other blog a few times, in music of Shostakovich, Barber and Hindemith.

The Philco company has an interesting history. "Philco" is short for the Philadelphia Storage Battery Co., which started out making batteries for electric cars. When radio came along in the 1920s, all sets were powered by these batteries, which supplied the direct current needed to drive the apparatus. Philco began making batteries for that application, then came out with a converter that would rectify the alternating current from a wall plug into DC.

Philco started manufacturing the radios themselves when internal vacuum tube rectifiers came on the market, eventually branching out into phonographs and the ill-fated "Beam of Light" model.