Westminster Records was an American classical music record label.
History
It was founded in 1949 by the owner of the Westminster Record shop in New York City, James Grayson, and conductor Henry Swoboda. Its trademark was Big Ben and its slogan was "natural balance", referring to its single microphone technique in recording music, similar to Mercury Records' Living Presence series. In the late 1950s, the company began issuing some stereophonic recordings, including a rare performance of the music of Swedish composer Hugo Alfven (1872-1960) conducted by the composer.
The company was sold to ABC-Paramount Records in the early 1960s, which continued to issue new material as well as reissue old material on the Westminster Gold label. While Westminster stopped issuing new recordings in 1965, ABC continued its active reissue of the back catalogue with sleeves incorporating whimsy and humor to garner sales. MCA Records acquired the Westminster catalog, when it bought ABC Records in 1979. In 1980, MCA reissued much of its classical music back catalogues of Decca Records and ABC/Westminster Records on the MCA Westminster label.
The Westminster catalogue, as well as the rest of the MCA classical music catalogue, is now managed by Deutsche Grammophon.
External links
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