Buon Natale 1967 e Felice Anno Nuovo / Merry Christmas 1967 and Happy New Year

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Pietro Grossi

1967

Music/Sound

1 disc (7-inch, 45 rpm, mono) in die-cut folding card sleeve

Accompanied by promotional letter to Hans Åstrand.

The Listening Room

Description

This gramophone record from 1967 features a 4-minute, 30-second track generated and performed by a GE-115 computer. A promotional Christmas gift distributed by General Electric, the record is a remarkable relic from an era when major corporations supported avant-garde artistic experiments, which they understood to be effective marketing tools.

The record was produced by Olivetti-General Electric in Italy, where the pioneering electronic music composer Pietro Grossi was invited to develop his research on the GE-115 mainframe. With technical support from OGE staff member Ferruccio Zulian, Grossi and the team at his electronic music studio, the Studio di Fonologia Musicale di Firenze, devised programs for the computer to play classical music and generate original compositions.

The GE-115 experiments led to multiple records and live demos. According to the letter which accompanies it, this particular record—a 7-inch, 45 rpm disc with mono audio—was distributed to a small group of General Electric associates in Sweden.