From the archives
Andrew Mcgregor looks back at 40 years of Chandos Records with the help of its celebratory box set release
When you think about what this trim red box (Chandos ANNI 0040; 40 CDS) represents, it’s remarkable. The origins of Chandos go back over half-a-century, when Brian Couzens – a composer, arranger and orchestrator – started a publishing company specialising in brass band music. Couzens also worked as a freelance producer, and in
1979 he turned Chandos into a record label, with his son Ralph as engineer. When people talk about ‘the Chandos sound’ – and they did from the label’s early years – it’s hard to define, but the first recording in the box is a good example: Bax’s Symphony
No. 4 conducted by Bryden Thomson. Richard Hickox succeeded Thomson, and of his almost 300 recordings for the label, they’ve picked his award-winning account of Vaughan Williams’s London Symphony – still a stunning performance and recording – the first volume of the label’s Grainger series, and Haydn’s Creation Mass with Collegium Musicum 90.
Chandos is so well established now it would be easy to forget the ways in which it pioneered artists and repertoire over the years, often leading the way for other labels. The Oslo Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons were hardly household names when Couzens heard their Tchaikovsky 5 in 1984 and signed them. Nigel Kennedy’s first recording is also here, a recital of Elgar, as is an early recording from The Sixteen: Handel’s Chandos Anthems (of course). There’s also early Stephen Hough in Hummel Concertos, rare repertoire that turned out to be a best-seller. But this is a label that has always cared about relationships – Thomson and Hickox, then Neeme Järvi, Andrew Davis, John Wilson and Edward Gardner. They’re all here – a pity Vernon Handley isn’t. A Gerald Finley recital waves the flag for the Opera in English series – although it would have been good to have a whole one, and maybe more early music from Chandos’s Chaconne offshoot. But I’m delighted they’re all complete albums, not highlights, and this is a joyful celebration of a proudly independent British label.
Andrew Mcgregor is the presenter of Radio 3’s Record Review, broadcast each Saturday morning from 9am until 11.45am