The 2003 catalogue of the Naxos bargain CD label is an extraordinary document. In it, founder Klaus Heymann mocks his top-price competitors as focusing on "crossover programs, theme compilations and a handful of marketable stars." And it's hard not to agree with him. Naxos, he claims, offers, by contrast, an enormous range of recordings -- almost 2,500 by the end of this year -- at an astonishingly low price, around NT$150 here in Taiwan.
Naxos was founded in Hong Kong in 1987 with the aim of marketing classical CDs at a price comparable to the LPs of that time. It has more or less kept its prices the same since those days, and is now, for instance, the UK's biggest-selling classical label in terms of numbers of CDs sold.
Now Naxos has expanded into DVDs alongside Opus Arte and Arthaus Musik (an animated Cunning Little Vixen with Kent Nagano, for instance, and Cecilia Bartoli in concert), plus audio books and a very energetic series of educational projects. Heymann puts it all down to his initial love of music -- he's been "passionate about classical music," he reports, all his life.
What are the distinctive strengths and weaknesses of, what is by any account, an extraordinary commercial venture?
Naxos has always had an eye for where their main chance lay. It knew, for instance, there was no possibility it could compete with a big label's star-studded opera recording. Large-scale ventures with Western European or American artists were also beyond its means. So it has concentrated on three things -- Eastern European artists, the lesser-known repertoire, and small-scale works. They'll record almost anything, it sometimes appears, but these are nevertheless the areas where they've garnered most acclaim. Because Naxos adorn their catalogue with indications of high ratings given by review magazines, it's easy to see where recordings have won praise, and where the critics have passed them over in silence.
Opera, as we've said, is not a Naxos strength, and only their Flying Dutchman has aroused a degree of interest. Even this is unsatisfactory in the final analysis.
Where Naxos does score, though, is with lesser-known 20th century composers. Their recordings of works by people like Malcolm Arnold, Leonardo Balada, Arnold Bax, Witold Lutoslawski, Anthony Payne, Walter Piston, William Schuman, Karol Szymanowski and William Walton have won plaudits from a generous range of specialist review publications.
Medieval and Renaissance music -- "Stone-age music" to its detractors -- has also proved a profitable area for Naxos. Discs of music by pre-19th century composers such as Thomas Tomkins, Francesco Manfredini, and Johannes Ockeghem -- virtually unknown names -- have won lavish praise from surprised reviewers.
With both the 20th century and the Middle Ages, the comparative lack of interest has proved an asset for the label. The big companies consider this music commercially unprofitable, so Naxos has been able to slip in and fill the niche.
Certain isolated discs stand out. The CD most studded with symbols indicating critical enthusiasm is that of Vaughan Williams's Phantasy Quintet and String Quartets Nos: 1 & 2, played by the Maggini Quartet, plus Garfield Jackson in the first item (8.555300). This CD, readily available in Taipei at FNAC, could be considered the prestigious flagship of the entire Naxos enterprise.
Also highly praised has been the CD of early vocal music entitled Lamentations from the Oxford Camerata under Jeremy Summerly (8.550572), that of solo guitar music played by Jason Vieaux (8.553449), and -- rather surprisingly -- some of Bruckner's early symphonies, notably Nos: 2 and 3, conducted by Georg Tintner (8.554006 and 8.553454).
The recordings of all of Haydn's string quartets, played by the Kodaly Quartet, are also widely admired, with the Penguin Guide to Classical CDs giving rosettes, its highest accolade, to the six Opus 76 quartets (8.550314 and 8.550315), but warmly welcoming the entire 23 CD collection.
Also highly recommended is the CD titled English String Music, played by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta under Richard Studt (8.550823). This contains a particularly compelling version of Britten's early Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge in which a series of traditional dance measures are treated with an almost brutal contempt, with the composer kicking them into new life while simultaneously disdaining their inherently platitudinous nature. The composer's early anger at his own homosexuality in the context of the 1930s can be sensed in this extraordinary music.
Any label can be considered as having come of age when it starts to have deleted items. Thus Naxos's wonderful version of Mozart's string quartets known by the nicknames The Hunt and Dissonance, played by the Moyzes Quartet from Slovakia, is unfortunately no longer listed. You still might see a copy -- if you do, snap it up; its number was 8.550105. Naxos's complete Mozart quartets, played by the Eder Quartet, were recorded in an over-reverberant church in Budapest and are unfortunately not to be recommend.
Mozart's piano concertos, on the other hand, are very attractively played on Naxos by the Hungarian pianist Jeno Jando. The same pianist has also recorded all Beethoven's piano sonatas for Naxos. As just about every concert pianist has also tackled these, the competition is too strong for Naxos to win many plaudits here. But Jeno Jando is an infectiously enthusiastic artist, and you couldn't possibly go wrong with him at this price. It's true he's given to grunts and moans here and there, but so, come to that, was Glenn Gould.
One disadvantage Naxos may paradoxically labor under is some people's desire to pay high prices for things, not liking to be seen to own products that friends will know didn't cost them much. On the other hand, many people now know from their own experience that CDs cost next to nothing to copy, and so are becoming reluctant to pay high prices for them. In such a situation, labels such as Naxos can only go from strength to strength.
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