Fisher Shall Have Music Article

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REPRINTED, WITH PERMISSION, FROM THE ATLANTIC

JOHN M. CONLY

WEN, in the course of Siamese
events, it became desirable for young
King Phumiphon to take to himself a
bride, the international brotherhood
of heads of state was thrown into a
perplexity. For what does one give
as a wedding present to a man who
already has everything (including
real white elephants)?

Not among the perplexed, how-
ever, were President and Mrs. Harry
S. Truman. King Phumiphon was
known to be a music lover, and Mr.
Truman was the only American
President ever to be seen in public
following a performance of the

Wen NinttrSymphony-with' a' '

score. These circumstances simpli-
fied matters. The Trumans called
promptly on the man likeliest to
solve their gift problem: Avery
Fisher.

Within weeks, from Mr. Fishers
New York factory there went out

bound for Bangkok at most magnifi-
cent high-fidelity custom phono-
graph. Set into its hand-rubbed
woodwork was a large silver plate,
inscribed with the good wishes of the
donors. As if, says Fisher now,
with a hint of a grin, the King was
likely to forget who gave it to him.

The order for the King of Thai-

©1954 nsxzn mom communion

THEY SHALL HAVE MUSIC

THE MILLION-DOLLAR AVOCATION

land did not disturb the Fisher es-
tablishment a bit. In the last twenty-
one years, Avery Fisher has become,
beyond much question, the leading
purveyor of phonographic high fidel-
ity to the worlds Very Important
People. If you visit the Maharajah
of Indore, you will find in his palace
3 Fisher phonograph. And one of
the most elaborate of all Fisher
custom installations adorns the living
quarters of the Shah of Iran, Mo-
hammed Riza Pahlavi. Quite a
hi-fi man, Fisher comments, as
well as a good sports-car driver; the
two things seem to go together.
The list of Fishers notable clients
resounds so nicely and reflects so
much hard work, taste, and attention
that a small sampling of its member-
ship seems warranted: Max Ascoli,
Irving Berlin, Dr. Arthur F. Burns,
Lee j. Cobb, S. B. Colgate, Bing
Crosby, Thomas E. Dewey, four of
the Mesdames Du Pont, Mrs. Mar-
shall Field, Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz,
Ira Gershwin, Huntington Hartford,
III, William Randolph Hearst, Jr.,
Lillian Hellman, Henry j. Kaiser,
Elia Kazan, Joshua Logan, Claire
Boothe Luce, Fredric March, Gian«
Carlo Menotti, Mitch Miller, Henry
Morgan, Newbold Morris, Malcolm
Muir, Mrs. j. C. Penney, M. N.
Rand, Roy Rogers, Baron Maurice
de Rothschild, Andrés Segovia, Ed-
ward Steichen, Dr. Albert Schweit-
zer, Jennie Tourel, Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt, and Sergeant Friday.
The only trouble with this list is
that Avery Fisher would consider it
incomplete, because it does not in-
clude Mr. Gold. Mr. Gold is the
operator of a neighborhood hand
laundry in New York, and he came
calling upon Fisher one day last
year. (Fisher, incidentally, owns or
leases nearly a block of buildings in
Long Island- City, and it takes a

good ten minutes, from a standing
start, to find his office.) Gold had
put together a high-fidelity music
system which incorporated several
Fisher components and which did
not seem to be working as it should.
He was distressed. Fisher received
him (he receives everybody) and

astounded him further by suggesting
that they go to Golds home.

They did, and Fisher reports on
the venture: I went in and I saw a
record collection second to none I
know of, at least in quality, not even
to WQXRS, let alone my own. Not
only LPs but 783. Everything was
there that ought to be there, the
choicest and most essential things.
He went to work on the music system
and quite easily made it sound right.
But he will not forget Mr. Gold in a
hurry. Mr. Gold is the man whose
name, Fisher hopes, is (or will be)
legion. This is our intellectual
nobility, he says, make no mistake
about it. And it is a very encourag-
ing thing.

Everything seems to encourage
Fisher; there has been a kind of
serendipity in the course of his life.
He is now in the beginning of his
fifth decade, a sturdily built man
with an orderly thatch of graying

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hair, dark eyes, and a ready and
rather gentle smile. He was born in
the Yorkville section of Manhattan
into a family to whom music and
phonographs both were an impor-
tant part of recreational life. His
father, Charles Fisher, a real estate
specialist, owned one of the nations
biggest collections of acoustic horn
gramophones. The boy Avery was
allowed to study the violin as early as
he wanted to, which was pretty early.

He is still a proficient violinist. At
the Fisher home on New Yorks
East Side there are regular chamber
music concerts in which Fisher plays
first or second fiddle, depending on
the music- and performing company.

Despite this musicianly bent, when
he went to NYU he majored in biol-
ogy, taking a B.S. He didnt use it.
He went instead to Dodd, Mead and
Company, book publishers, where
he learned book and typographical
design. He became very good at
this, as is attested by his success with
it since as a lucrative hobby. The
latest set of books he has designed is
Sir Winston Churchills Hitter} of the
English-Speaking Peoples. Fisher loves
to be accosted at parties by people
who ask him: Did you know theres
another Avery Fisher, who designs
books?

Profession (book designing) and
avocation (high fidelity) exchanged
places in 1937. Like sundry others
in his present calling, Fisher began
his high fidelity experimenting so
that he himself might enjoy repro-
duced music at its best. Broadcasting
and recording had far outsped the
home radio and phonograph. So
pleased was he with the results of his
labors that he was anxious to share
them, and he also saw that they
might be marketable. In 1937, there-
fore, he quit the book business and
founded the Philharmonic Radio

Corporation. His first chief product
was a chassis which incorporated a
TRF (tuned radio frequency) re-
ceiver and a twenty-five-watt beam-
powered audio amplifier. He would
not tolerate it now, but in its time it
was probably the best in the world.
He built radio-phonographs as fast
as he could, but never quite fast
enough to answer the demand. Our
latter-day yearning for music, un-
paralleled in the worlds history, had
caught up with him.

The war interrupted the joy ride.
Fisher sold his company to a big
corporation and directed it, through
the duration of hostilities, in the
production of electronic mechanisms
for war.

Once the war was over, he cut
loose again and got back to music.
In 1945 he established the Fisher
Radio Corporation. It is a dual
operation, as all his manufacturing
has been from the beginning. For
prosperous folk, short of time or
indolent, he makes assembled phono-
graphs (designed as furniture by
Avery Fisher). For venturous music
lovers, who feel themselves partners
to Casals or Klemperer, he makes
high-fidelity components - ampli-
fiers, preamplifiers, F M-AM radio
tuners, remote-control switches (in-
cluding a stereo balance control that
may prevent many a nervous break-
down), and the like. These also are
styled tastefully, but with a differ-
ence. A Fisher amplifier is, perhaps,
a little heavier than it needs to be, by
virtue of its oversized components.
There is a built-in challenge: if you
can lift it you will love it. On Fisher
preamplifiers there are always a cou-
ple of knife switches, which are
completely unnecessary except that
they denote a kind of raw, masculine
efficiency. Flip one of these and you
feel as if you are governing the S. S.
Constitution, or at least a sizable yacht.
A button to push or a knob to turn is
not the same thing, Designers have
to be psychologists, and Avery
Fisher is a very good designer.

His designs upon his customers,
however, are entirely benign. He
thoroughly enjoys his work, and one
gets the impression that this is mainly
why he performs it. He thinks profit
comes after the job well done and
must wait upon it. Accordingly, his
procedure in business is a little
strange, especially to the people that
work for him. One rule, for instance,
is that any customer who calls Fisher
through the office switchboard gets

to talk to him direct; even Fishers
secretary cannot prevent this.

Fisher has the gift of making right
decisions in split seconds and of
picking people to surround him who
can think nearly as he does. This
allows him the liberty of being a
business artist, a considerable liberty
which he takes seriously. He admits
pride in a few things. One of them
is the Fisher FM tuner 90, which he
thinks helped convert Continental
Europe to FM (it outsells all other
tuners there) and thus brought bet-
ter music home to some thousands of
Europeans. In other artistic matters
he is almost fiercely modest.

His fiddle bow is a Hill, of some
renown, but his violin is not of
famous make. IfI were to sequester
a Strad or a Guadagnini, he ex-
plains with fervor, for amateur use,
it would be almost a sin. These
instruments should be put at the
disposal of professional artists, for
the public, not kept in private
homes. Anyway, he continues,
this is an age of reproduction, of re-
production that can almost be called
perfect.

Patently, this is where the reporter
must come to the aid of the man
scanned, for never in his life would
Avery Fisher audibly presume that
he has been of assistance to the en-
deavors of Johann Sebastian Bach
or Ludwig van Beethoven. Yet he
and his colleagues and competitors

in the reproduction of sound have
so served, beyond any doubt. Never
before in the world have so many
people listened so earnestly and with
such reward to so much good music
as now. And most of it happens in
living rooms.

Charged with a proposition like
this, Mr. Fisher becomes at once
gruff (which is uncharacteristic),
charitable, and institutional. What
he says is, and you are bound to be-
lievehim, Its a very honest busi-
ness. He ought to know.