Lyrita
Encyclopedia
| Lyrita Recorded Edition | |||
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| Parent company | none | ||
| Founded | 1958 | ||
| Founder(s) | Richard Itter | ||
| Distributing label | Nimbus Records Nimbus Records Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh... |
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| Genre(s) | classical music | ||
| Country | UK 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... |
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| Web address | www.lyrita.co.uk | ||
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,...
, specializing in the works of British composers.
Lyrita began releasing LPs
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
in October 1959 as Lyrita Recorded Edition for sale by mail order subscription. The founder of the company, Richard Itter of Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Burnham, Buckinghamshire
Burnham is a village and civil parish that lies north of the River Thames in the South Bucks District of Buckinghamshire, and sits on the border with Berkshire, between the towns of Maidenhead and Slough. It is served by Burnham railway station in the west of Slough on the main line between London...
, was a businessman and record collector. Having heard many poor records, he determined to make only good ones.
Lyrita concentrated on the work of United Kingdom composers. At first this consisted of the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
music of Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, Gordon Jacob
Gordon Jacob
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
, E.J. Moeran and Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
amongst others. The earliest recordings were made in the music room of Itter’s home. Itter was responsible for the engineering, production, and editing of the recordings. If he managed to sell 100 copies Itter was able to break even. RCS.2 was the first catalog number, and Gordon Jacob wrote a composition specifically for this album, "Elegy for Piano and Cello", to fill out the programme on the disc.
In time, the bulk of Lyrita's catalogue became orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l and symphonic works
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, including otherwise-neglected composers at that time, including William Alwyn
William Alwyn
William Alwyn, CBE, born William Alwyn Smith was an English composer, conductor, and music teacher.-Life and music:...
, Malcolm Arnold
Malcolm Arnold
Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...
, Arnold Bax
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, KCVO was an English composer and poet. His musical style blended elements of romanticism and impressionism, often with influences from Irish literature and landscape. His orchestral scores are noted for their complexity and colourful instrumentation...
, Havergal Brian
Havergal Brian
Havergal Brian , was a British classical composer.Brian acquired a legendary status at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950s and 1960s for the many symphonies he had managed to write. By the end of his life he had completed 32, an unusually large number for any composer since Haydn or Mozart...
, Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge was an English composer and violist.-Life:Bridge was born in Brighton and studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1899 to 1903 under Charles Villiers Stanford and others...
, Arnold Cooke
Arnold Cooke
Arnold Atkinson Cooke was a British composer.-Career:He was born at Gomersal, West Yorkshire into a family of carpet manufacturers. He was educated at Repton School and at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he read History, but he was already attracted to a career in music...
, Gerald Finzi
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a song-writer, but also wrote in other genres...
, John Foulds
John Foulds
John Herbert Foulds was a British composer of classical music. Largely self-taught as a composer, he was one of the most remarkable and unjustly forgotten figures of the "British Musical Renaissance"....
, George Lloyd
George Lloyd (composer)
George Walter Selwyn Lloyd was a British composer.-Early life:Of Cornish ancestry, Lloyd grew up in a family with great enthusiasm for music. He was mainly home-schooled because of rheumatic fever. He later studied violin with Albert Sammons and composition with Harry Farjeon. He was a student at...
, Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak of his fame in the mid-20th century. The most famous of his pieces are his eleven...
, Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle was a British composer.-Biography:He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton...
and Cyril Rootham
Cyril Rootham
Cyril Bradley Rootham was an English composer, educator, organist and important figure in Cambridge music life.-Biography:...
. Many Lyrita LPs became regarded as demonstration discs, suitable for showcasing the sonic qualities of high-end hi-fi
High fidelity
High fidelity—or hi-fi—reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound or images, to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment...
equipment. Nearly all of Lyrita's recordings were produced by Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
and pressed by either Decca or Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh...
. When Decca joined PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
, the relationship with Lyrita ended.
The only non-British music to be recorded and issued on Lyrita was Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian piano music performed by Elizabeth Powell on RCS.22. Works by Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
, Edward MacDowell
Edward MacDowell
Edward Alexander MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites "Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", and "New England Idylls". "Woodland Sketches" includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose"...
and Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
were also recorded but not issued.
Lyrita issued monaural
Monaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
records in the RCS series, and stereophonic
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
records in the SRCS series beginning at SRCS.31 (which corresponded with monaural RCS.31). The stereo series ran to SRCS.131. Lyrita issues compact discs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
(CDs) in the SRCD series beginning with SRCD.200 and running through SRCD.332.
Lyrita's stereophonic LPs from the SRCS series were also issued in the U.S. by the Musical Heritage Society (1972–1977) and HNH (1978–1979). Lyrita began exporting their records to the U.S. in 1980. The first digital
Digital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
productions were made in June 1982, and LP production was discontinued in 1988.
In 1990 Lyrita began issuing CDs featuring a small selection of their back catalogue, a few newly recorded items, and recordings licensed from other sources. There was a 15-year hiatus during which attempts were made to persuade Itter to release the rest of the catalogue on CD.
In summer 2006 Wyastone Estate Ltd (proprietors of Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records
Nimbus Records is a British record company specializing in classical music recordings.Nimbus was founded in 1972 by the late bass singer Numa Labinsky and the brothers Michael and Gerald Reynolds and has traditionally been based at the Wyastone Leys mansion site, near Monmouth and the English/Welsh...
) reached an agreement with Richard Itter to distribute the company's entire catalogue over an 18-month period. The first discs to appear would be those CD transfers which appeared in the 1990s; the remaining original analogue
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
masters
Master recording
A multitrack recording master tape, disk or computer files on which productions are developed for later mixing, is known as the multi-track master, while the tape, disk or computer files holding a mix is called a mixed master.It is standard practice to make a copy of a master recording, known as...
would subsequently be digitized and transferred to CD, making all of Lyrita's recordings available on CD for the first time.