Sony Classical Records
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| Sony Classical Records | |
|---|---|
| Image:Sonyclassicallogo.gif | |
| Parent company | Sony BMG Music Entertainment |
| Founded | [[1927 in music|1927]] |
| Distributing label | Sony BMG Masterworks (In the US)</td></tr> |
| Genre(s) | Classical Music |
| Country of Origin | US |
| Website | Official site of Sony Classical Records |
Sony Classical Records was started in 1927 as Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of the American Columbia Records. In 1948 (renamed to Columbia Masterworks Records), it issued the first long-playing 12" record. Over the next decades its artists included Isaac Stern, Pablo Casals, Vladimir Horowitz, Eugene Ormandy and Leonard Bernstein.
Columbia Records used the Masterworks brand name not only for classical and Broadway records, but also for spoken-word albums such as Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly's successful I Can Hear It Now series. Parent CBS also featured the Masterworks name on its consumer electronics equipment.
In 1980 the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed CBS Masterworks Records, but in 1990 after CBS Records was acquired by Sony it was finally renamed Sony Classical Records (Its logo echoes the Music Notes logo that was Columbia's emblem until 1955). During the 1990s the label attracted controversy under the leadership of Peter Gelb as it emphasized crossover music over mainstream classical releases, failing to make available much of its archive of great recordings.
Going "back to the future," the Masterworks name lives on in its series of Broadway cast albums, Columbia Broadway Masterworks, and as the consolidated name of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's classical music division, Sony BMG Masterworks.
