Music: Five Years of LP

Columbia Records celebrated the fifth anniversary of LP recordings with self-congratulatory statistics last week. In five years the company has issued 20 million of its own LPs and pressed over a million for independent labels. Best of all, from Columbia’s point of view, LPs helped the company account for nearly a quarter of all records sold in 1952, appreciably narrowing the gap which has long existed between Columbia and giant RCA Victor.

For music lovers, the long-play record has produced a top bonanza. New titles are being issued at ten times the rate they were on 78-r.p.m. disks. The new records also seem to deserve credit for broadening tastes. Where Chopin’s Polonaise and the Boston Pops recording of Jalousie were bestsellers among “classical” records in 1947, last year’s favorites were Beethoven’s monumental Ninth Symphony (conducted by Arturo Toscanini) and a much more esoteric score, Berlioz’ symphonic scenes, Harold in Italy. Last week Billboard’s music sleuths found the public foraging still farther afield. Among the ten best-selling concert LPs: Cherubini’s Symphony in D (Victor), Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 7 (Columbia), and Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony (London).