Westminster Records
Westminster Records was an American classical music record label, issuing original recordings from 1949 to 1965.
It was founded in 1949 by Mischa Naida, the owner of the Westminster Record shop in New York City, businessman James Grayson, and conductor Henry Swoboda. Its trademark was Big Ben and its slogan was "natural balance", referring to its single microphone technique in recording music, similar to Mercury Records' Living Presence series. Early on, its recordings were technically superior to most others currently in the marketplace, and the label became very popular among the growing community of audiophiles. In the late 1950s, the company began issuing some stereophonic recordings, including a rare performance of the music of Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960) conducted by the composer.
The company was sold in the early 1960s to ABC-Paramount Records, which continued to issue new material as well as reissue old material on the Westminster Gold label. While Westminster stopped issuing new recordings in 1965, ABC continued its active reissue of the back catalogue with sleeves, beginning in 1970, which incorporated whimsy and humor to garner sales from high school and college age classical music fans.[1] MCA Records acquired the Westminster catalog when it bought ABC Records in 1979. MCA, which continued to distribute ABC's remaining inventory of classical music albums, hired former ABC classical department head John Sievers to start up MCA's classical music department.[2] In 1980, MCA reissued much of its classical music back catalogues of Command Records, Decca Records and ABC/Westminster Records on the MCA Westminster label.[3]
The Westminster catalogue, as well as the rest of the MCA classical music catalogue, is now managed by Deutsche Grammophon.[4]
The Westminster Laboratory (W-Lab) series of classical recordings were technically superior to other brands and sold at higher price than the regular Westminsters.
[edit] References
- ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=kCkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=%22westminster+gold%22+%2B+cover&hl=en&ei=S-IcTd-2NInJnAfPwdT9DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
- ^ Panchensky, Alan (1979-09-01). "Ex-ABC exec to head MCA's wing". Billboard (Nielsen Business Media): p. 91. http://books.google.com/books?id=DyQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT91. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
- ^ "New budget MCA line due, Feb. 8". Billboard (Nielsen Business Media): p. 41. 1979-12-22. http://books.google.com/books?id=CSQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT41. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
- ^ "Westminster". Series & Editions. Deutsche Grammophon. http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/series/prod_series?ID=WMNSTR. Retrieved 13 December 2010.
