Lyrita is a British

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

, specializing in the works of

British composers British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and cultur ...

Lewis Foreman Lewis Foreman (born 1941) is a musicologist and author of books, articles, programme notes and CD sleeve notes on classical music, specialising in British music. He has been particularly associated with the Dutton Epoch and Lyrita record labels ...

. ''Recording British Music'' (2024), ch. 17, pp. 223-233 Lyrita began releasing LPs in October 1959 as Lyrita Recorded Edition for sale by mail order subscription. The founder of the company, Richard Itter (5 April 1928 – 1 March 2014) of

Burnham, Buckinghamshire Burnham is a large village and civil parish that lies north of the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, between the towns of Maidenhead and Slough, about 24 miles west of Charing Cross, London. It is probably best known for the nearby Burnham Beech ...

, was a businessman and record collector. Having heard many poor records, he determined to make only good ones. Lyrita concentrated on the work of United Kingdom composers. At first, this consisted of the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

music of

Arnold Bax Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music ...

Gordon Jacob Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE (5 July 18958 June 1984) was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about ...

, E.J. Moeran, and

Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as o ...

amongst others. The earliest recordings were made in the music room of Itter's home. Itter was responsible for the engineering, production, and editing of the recordings. If he managed to sell 100 copies Itter would have been able to break even. RCS.2 was the first catalog number, and Gordon Jacob wrote a composition specifically for this album, "Elegy for Piano and Cello", to fill out the program on the disc. In time, the bulk of Lyrita's catalogue became

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

l and symphonic works, including otherwise-neglected composers at that time, including

William Alwyn William Alwyn (born William Alwyn Smith; 7 November 1905 – 11 September 1985), was a prolific English composer, Conducting, conductor, and music teacher who composed over 200 cinematic scores, of which some 70 were for full-length features, ...

Malcolm Arnold Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. His works feature music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music f ...

Havergal Brian William Havergal Brian (29 January 187628 November 1972) was an English composer, librettist, and church organist. He is best known for having composed 32 symphonies—an unusually high number amongst his contemporaries—25 of them ...

Frank Bridge Frank Bridge (26 February 187910 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor. Life Bridge was born in Brighton, the ninth child of William Henry Bridge (1845–1928), a violin teacher and variety theatre conductor, formerly a ...

Arnold Cooke Arnold Atkinson Cooke (4 November 1906 – 13 August 2005) was a British composer, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, including five string quartets and many instrumental sonatas, much of which is only n ...

Gerald Finzi Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata '' Dies natalis'' for solo voice and ...

John Foulds John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 1880 – 25 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer ...

, George Lloyd,

Edmund Rubbra Edmund Rubbra (; 23 May 190114 February 1986) was a British composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras. He was greatly esteemed by fellow musicians and was at the peak o ...

Humphrey Searle Humphrey Searle (26 August 1915 – 12 May 1982) was an English composer and writer on music. His music combines aspects of late Romanticism and modernist serialism, particularly reminiscent of his primary influences, Franz Liszt, Arnold Sch ...

and

Cyril Rootham Cyril Bradley Rootham (5 October 1875 – 18 March 1938) was an English composer, educator and organist. His work at Cambridge University made him an influential figure in English music life. A Fellow of St John's College, where he was also or ...

. Many Lyrita LPs became regarded as demonstration discs, suitable for showcasing the sonic qualities of high-end

hi-fi High fidelity (hi-fi or, rarely, HiFi) is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat (neutral, uncolored) ...

equipment. Nearly all of Lyrita's recordings were produced by

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...

and pressed by either Decca or

Nimbus Records Nimbus Records is a British record company based at Wyastone Leys, Ganarew, Herefordshire. It specialises in classical music recordings and was the first company in the UK to produce compact discs. Description Nimbus was founded in 1972 by C ...

. When Decca joined PolyGram in 1980, the relationship with Lyrita ended. The only non-British music to be recorded and issued on Lyrita was

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian piano music performed by Elizabeth Powell on RCS.22. Works by

Paul Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advo ...

Edward MacDowell Edward Alexander MacDowell (December 18, 1860January 23, 1908) was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites '' Woodland Sketches'', ''Sea Pieces'' and ''Ne ...

, and

Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...

were also recorded but not issued. Lyrita issued

monaural Monaural sound or monophonic sound (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduce so ...

records in the RCS series, and

stereophonic Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

records in the SRCS series beginning at SRCS.31 (which corresponded with monaural RCS.31). The stereo series ran to SRCS.131. Lyrita issues

compact discs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of holding of uncompr ...

(CDs) in the SRCD series beginning with SRCD.200 and running through SRCD.332. Lyrita's stereophonic LPs from the SRCS series were also issued in the U.S. by the

Musical Heritage Society Musical Heritage Society was an American mail-order record label founded in New York City in 1962 by Michael "Mischa" Naida (1900–1991), co-founder of Westminster Records, and T. C. Fry Jr. (1926–1996). Background After a small initial gro ...

(1972–1977) and HNH (1978–1979). Lyrita began exporting their records to the U.S. in 1980. The first

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

productions were made in June 1982, and LP production was discontinued in 1988. In 1990 Lyrita began issuing CDs featuring a small selection of their back catalogue, a few newly recorded items, and recordings licensed from other sources. There was a 15-year hiatus during which attempts were made to persuade Itter to release the rest of the catalogue on CD. In summer 2006 Wyastone Estate Ltd (proprietors of

) reached an agreement with Richard Itter to distribute the company's entire catalogue over an 18-month period. The first discs to appear would be those CD transfers which appeared in the 1990s; the remaining original analogue masters would subsequently be digitized and transferred to CD, making all of Lyrita's recordings available on CD for the first time. In 2014 agreement was reached with the BBC to commercially release the private archive Itter had made at home using professional recording equipment of music otherwise lost due to

Musicians' Union (UK) The Musicians' Union (MU) is an organisation which represents over 30,000 musicians working in all sectors of the British music business. Royalties The Musicians' Union (MU) Royalty Department, in its current form, was set up in July 2011. F ...

regulations requiring the BBC not to keep copies.

References

{{Authority control British record labels Classical music record labels Record labels established in 1958 IFPI members 1958 establishments in the United Kingdom

See also

References