Hyperion Records is an independent British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

.

History

The company was named after Hyperion

Hyperion (mythology)

Hyperion was one of the twelve Titans of Ancient Greece, the sons and daughters of Gaia and Ouranos , which were later supplanted by the Olympians. He was the brother of Cronus. He was also the lord of light, and the Titan of the east...

, one of the Titans

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....

 of Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by composers such as Robin Milford

Robin Milford

Robin Milford was an English composer.- Biography :Milford was born in Oxford, son of Sir Humphrey Milford, publisher with Oxford University Press. He attended Rugby School from 1916 where his musical talent for the piano, flute and theory was recognised, and studied at the Royal College of Music...

, Alan Bush

Alan Bush

Alan Dudley Bush was a British composer and pianist. He was a committed socialist, and politics sometimes provided central themes in his music.-Personal life:...

 and Michael Berkeley

Michael Berkeley

Michael Berkeley is a British composer and broadcaster on music.-Early life:His father was the composer Sir Lennox Berkeley...

. The success of the venture was sealed with a critically acclaimed and hugely popular disc of music by Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen

Blessed Hildegard of Bingen , also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and...

 directed by the medievalist Christopher Page

Christopher Page

Christopher Page is an expert on medieval music, instruments and performance practice. He has written seven books regarding medieval music...

 and his group Gothic Voices

Gothic Voices

Gothic Voices is a United Kingdom based vocal ensemble specialising in repertoire from the 11th to the 15th century. The group was formed in 1981 by scholar and musician Christopher Page....

. The current director of Hyperion Records is Simon Perry, son of Ted Perry.

Recognition

Hyperion became renowned for recording lesser-known works, particularly reviving romantic piano concerto

Piano concerto

A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...

s which had fallen from the repertory, works by Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 romantic composers and English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 music of the Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 to the Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

. They are especially well-known for their series of recordings of the complete music for solo piano by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

 recorded by Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard (musician)

Leslie Howard AM is an Australian pianist and composer. He is best known for being the only pianist to have recorded the complete solo piano works of Franz Liszt, a project which included more than 300 premiere recordings...

. They are also famed for their complete edition of the lieder of Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

, prepared under the supervision of the accompanist

Accompaniment

In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...

 Graham Johnson, and many of Handel's

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

 oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

s and Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

's choral works under the direction of Robert King

Robert King (conductor)

Robert King is an English conductor and harpsichordist. As a youth, he was a member of the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge...

. More recently, Stephen Hough

Stephen Hough

Stephen Andrew Gill Hough is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality .-Biography:...

 recorded Rachmaninov's complete piano concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor, Op. 43 is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff. It is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Villa Senar, according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934...

 using the composer's original score, also on the Hyperion label. It is also notable for the breadth of the repertoire recorded, including music from the twelfth to the 21st centuries. The label is also renowned for complete settings of lieder by Carl Loewe, Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

, and Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

. More recently, Hyperion launched romantic violin concerto

Violin concerto

A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...

 and romantic cello concerto series.

Award-winning Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt, OC, OBE is a Canadian classical pianist. She holds British nationality through her father, Godfrey, who was the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario for almost fifty years.-Career:...

 OBE recorded a complete cycle of Bach

Bạch

Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...

's keyboard works for the label (including the Well-Tempered Clavier twice over), while Christopher Herrick

Christopher Herrick

-Early life:Born in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Christopher Herrick was a boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school; he sang at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and later that year went with the choir on a three-month tour of America which included a private...

 recorded his complete organ works.

Recordings released by Hyperion have won many awards, among them several Gramophone Awards, including Record of the Year in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2010.

2004 Lawsuit

In 2004 the company became embroiled in a legal dispute with Lionel Sawkins, a music editor whose editions of works by Michel-Richard de Lalande had been used in Hyperion's recording of the composer's music. Dr. Sawkins sued the company for royalties accruing from his musical copyright in these editions. Hyperion maintained that the editions were not original compositions, and therefore were not subject to copyright and further that Dr. Sawkins did receive payment in the form of a hire fee from the performers for their rental. The case came to court in May 2004 and the judgment went largely in favour of Dr. Sawkins. Hyperion chose to make an appeal in March 2005, in which the court upheld the original judgment. While the damages sought by Dr. Sawkins were thought to be small, the legal costs of the case were estimated to result in a liability to the company of hundreds of thousands of pounds Sterling, making the future of Hyperion Records uncertain at the time. By 2006, Hyperion had received financial support from musicians, consumers, and composers to enable its survival.

External links

• Hyperion Records' official web site
• Legal Judgements
  • Original case which concluded in May 2004:
    • • Appeal which concluded in March 2005:
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