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Sony Classical

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 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.

Website:

http://www.sonybmgmasterworks.com/

Crossover Media Projects:

Leonard Bernstein | New York Philharmonic : Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring 1958 version / Rem

Alondra de la Parra : Mi Alma Mexicana

Jessye Norman : Roots My Life, My Song

Midori : Bach & Bartok

The Ahn Trio : Lullaby for my Favorite Insomniac

Murray Perahia : Bach Keyboard Partitas #2,3 & 4

Soundtracks : The Water Horse

Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble : New Impossibilities

David Zinman : Karolju