Allesandro Scarlatti cantata's (and what happened to Conifer classics)
Thu, Jan 20 2011, 12:53PM
Hello all,
I was searching for CD's with chamber cantata's by Allesandero Scarlatti.
Remembering some good reviews, I searched for the Conifer Classics home, as they as a "series" of Scarlatti cantata's. Help! Where did the label go? Did it stop? Who took over the catalogue?
Subsequently, what are other recomendable CD's with Scarlatti cantata's?
Rolf
... I searched for the Conifer Classics home, as they as a "series" of Scarlatti cantata's. Help! Where did the label go? Did it stop? Who took over the catalogue?
'Conifer Classics' disappeared in 1996.
"Conifer Records (the company responsible for the Conifer Classics label), has been acquired by BMG Entertainment International, UK & Ireland - the owner of BMG Classics" [Gramophone, May 1996]
The resultant division was known as BMG Conifer for a time, but was subsequently assimilated into BMG Classics.
Later BMG Classics merged with Sony Classical, and now seems to have disappeared as a label - eg, it's not included in Sony Music Entertainment's list of record labels.
Apparently, many of Conifer's early music recordings - so, presumably, including the Scarlatti cantatas - were transferred to Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (DHM), then a part of BMG Classics.
But DHM vanished into the musical behemoth that is Sony, when Sony bought out Bertelsmann's 50% of the Sony BMG Music Entertainment joint-venture in 2008, of which BMG Classics was by then a part. The company was then renamed Sony Music Entertainment. DHM doesn't appear on Sony Music Entertainment's list of record labels either.
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