Seventy years ago this week something important happened in music history: the first LP, or long-playing vinyl record, was introduced. At the time, the LP was a new kind of record that let people listen to longer pieces of music. And it changed the way people listened to music.

Columbia Records first introduced the LP in 1948. To celebrate this year’s anniversary, the British music company HMV and the music company Sony Classical recreated 500 copies of the first performance recorded to an LP.

The recording was of a piece of classical music: Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor. Violinist Nathan Milstein performed the music with the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. All the copies of the LP are to be given away to fans, except for one, which will be donated to the British Library.

The record adds to the library’s collection of 250,000 LPs, most of which were released in Britain. The museum has other musical artifacts going back to the beginning of sound recording. These include wax cylinders, created by Thomas Edison in 1877. They were the first way fans could buy music to listen to at home.

Aliqismet BADALOV,
“Khalq qazeti”