An extraordinary story
Record Review’s Andrew Mcgregor celebrates the pioneering Naxos label on its 30th anniversary
Naxos’s arrival 30 years ago was almost accidental. Klaus Heymann, the businessman behind the Marco Polo label, used a company he already owned to release digital recordings from a cancelled project, and had the brainwave of selling each CD for the price of an LP. The first budget-priced classical label was born. Heymann had found a niche and an extraordinary opportunity, making digital recordings of core repertoire with little-known but very capable musicians, displaying the discs in easily recognisable packaging where they would attract impulse buys.
Heymann’s personal selection of 30 recordings for this Anniversary Collection (Naxos 8.503293; 30 CDS) begins with gently stylish Bach Orchestral Suites from the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, and the first Beethoven from Naxos’s indefatigable house pianist Jeno˝ Jandó. He helped Heymann scratch his itch for complete sets and cycles; he remembers the Kodály Quartet’s Haydn as being the first Naxos disc to receive critical acclaim in the UK, still a highly recommendable survey. Further plaudits came with the early music series masterminded by Jeremy Summerly and his Oxford Camerata, represented here by their glorious Tallis Spem in alium. It was a while before Heymann found the right conductor for the Bruckner Symphonies: Georg Tintner, and the Fifth reminds us of the integrity of his readings and the quality of the recordings.
It’s no surprise to us now to find Idil Biret’s Chopin Piano Concertos, Leonard Slatkin’s Detroit Copland and Marin
Alsop’s Dvoπák Symphony No. 9 in Baltimore, but these were recordings a major label might have welcomed. Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra are represented by their fine Tchaikovsky Manfred rather than Shostakovich, and there’s nothing from Naxos Historical. But the Rossini Barber of Seville from Budapest is still a major achievement, and modestly Heymann puts his best-selling Vivaldi Four Seasons at the back. We may take Naxos for granted now, but here’s a powerful reminder of how the label changed the classical landscape, to all of our benefits.
Klaus Heymann found a niche and an opportunity