Is the Musical Heritage Society still active.

[Lance]

During the LP era, they were quite a force for some unique material, mostly licensed from Erato and other labels with an occasional recording of their own. I hear nothing about them these days and have not acquired anything from them in years.

[John F]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Heritage_Society

I guess the answer is yes and no. Not under that name, anyway.

[stenka razin]

Passionato, which succeeded MHS is dead. I hope this does not mean the the Musical Heritage library is dead, too.


Regards,
Mel

[Lance]

I get the distinct impression it is dead. For a while they were issuing discs commercially available on some major labels, such as RCA. With some exceptions, most of their recordings were licensed from other labels. Among their own recordings was a series of music by Czerny played by the late Vivien Harvey Slater, whom I knew well. Their Musicmasters series had some excellent recordings by celebrated artists. Those appear to be gone now, as well, near as I can determine. My, how the CD world has changed and is continuing to change.

[maestrob]

IMHO, MHS never truly adapted well to the CD era. in the 60's and 70's, I bought many LP & cassette titles from them for $1.99 & $2.99, and was very happy with them. When CDs were introduced, they raised their price to $12.99 and stuck to it, even while budget CDs for $4.99 and $7.99 became popular. Their selections were not as attractive to me either.

Oh, well, mismanagement and all that. I'll still miss them.

[Wallingford]

MHS is to be honored for its long commitment to unusual, unrecorded repertory.

One of my old piano profs, Daniel Graham, recorded for MHS in the 70s (and financed the recording with several thousand dollars of his own money) the Henselt Etudes and the Szymanowski Sonatas, as well as the Anton Rubinstein Violin Sonatas with a fiddler I don't remember at the moment.

[Modernistfan]

Passionato is Lo Busto. I was a member of the MHS for a long time, but eventually dropped my membership when they had less and less stuff that I wanted, and their prices on mainstream repertoire were no longer competitive. I remember one time when they announced a recording of Kurt Weill's opera (really more of an opera-oratorio) "Die Bürgschaft" in advance of the EMI issue of that work, but they were never able to deliver it, and I eventually bought the EMI issue when it came out. (Maybe MHS ran out of umlauts.)

[Lance]

Well, MHS did a great job at one time. I have many of their LPs, especially of unusual repertoire. I lost interest in them a very long time ago. Too bad their Musicmasters series went kaput as well. Some fine artists on that label.