The Early Recording Industry in the Czech Lands – Part 4

Guest post by Daniel Matoušek

Until now, there has not been much literature on the recording industry in the former Czechoslovakia.  Particularly the history after the 1950s is not mapped at all yet. However, there are two books about the early music industry in the Czech lands that stand out in scope and in depth of detail: “Fonogram I” and “Fonogram II” by Czech record collector and sound industry historian Gabriel Gössel. The following short series of four articles is thus a look into the history of early gramophone industry in the Czech lands as described in these two volumes.

This last part examines the wartime period and the complicated situation in the post-war years. From 1939 to 1945, the Republic of Czechoslovakia was occupied by the national socialist German Reich and was officially renamed to Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, whose economy was directly controlled by the nazi regime. With the rise of the Communist party and the pressure towards nationalization after the war all recording companies were merged into a single state-owned enterprise called “The Gramophone Works”. The way of the Czechoslovakian music industry through the years of occupation and to post-war nationalization is examined in the following.

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The Early Record Industry in Australia – Part 4

The main competitors on the world record market, The Gramophone Company and the Columbia Graphophone Company, originally hesitated to enter the Australian market and it took several years before they etablished record pressing plants in Australia. Whereas the Columbia Graphophone also ran a recording studio from the beginning, the Gramophone Company could not bring itself to operate recording facilities in Australia in order to produce local acts. The Great Depression forced the rivals to amalgamate to EMI also in Australia in 1931.