Columbia Masterworks Records was a record label started in 1927 as Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. It became Columbia Masterworks in 1948. This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... See also: 1926 in music, other events of 1927, 1928 in music and the list of years in music. Events January 8 - Alban Bergs Lyric Suite is premiered in Vienna July 1 - Béla Bartóks Piano Concerto No. ... Masterworks Records was started in 1927 as a subsidiary of Columbia Records. ... Columbia Records is the oldest brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888, and was the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ...

It was intended for releases of classical music and artists, as opposed to popular music, which bore the regular Columbia logo. Masterworks Records' first release, in 1927, was a complete performance of the Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, conducted by Felix Weingartner. Under the leadership of its president Goddard Lieberson, who later added the rest of the Columbia label to his portfolio, a great many notable classical artists made contributions to the Columbia Masterworks library, such as the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy and George Szell, the pianists Vladimir Horowitz, Walter Gieseking and Oscar Levant and the organist E. Power Biggs. The composers Aaron Copland and Igor Stravinsky also appeared conducting their own works. Classical music is a term with three distinct meanings: The European tradition of music which is associated with high culture, as distinct from popular or folk forms (including works in this tradition in non-European countries). ... The in C minor, Op. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg (June 2, 1863 – May 7, 1942) was a conductor, composer and pianist. ... Goddard Lieberson (April 5, 1911-May 29, 1977) was president of Columbia Records from 1956-71 & 1973-75. ... Leonard Bernstein (IPA pronunciation: )[1] (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, and pianist. ... Eugene Ormandy in the 1950s Eugene Ormandy (November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a conductor and violinist. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Vladimir Samoylovych Horowitz (Ukrainian: ; Russian: ) (1 October 1903 – 5 November 1989) was a Ukrainian-born, American classical pianist. ... Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (November 5, 1895 – October 26, 1956) was a German pianist and composer. ... Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906 - August 14, 1972) was an American pianist, composer, author, comedian, and an actor, better known for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio and in movies and television, than his music. ... Edward George Power Biggs (March 29, 1906 - March 10, 1977), but always known as E. Power Biggs, was one of the most influential classical organists of the twentieth century. ... Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. ... Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский, Igor Fëdorovič Stravinskij) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th-century music. ...

In addition to classical music, Columbia Records also issued Broadway albums, soundtrack albums, and spoken-word recordings under the Masterworks name. The first wildly-successful spoken-word album was a 1948 Masterworks entry, the first I Can Hear It Now album, edited by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly and supervised by former CBS staffer J.G. Gude. The album would lead to three sequels, the Hear It Now program on the CBS Radio Network in 1950 and the CBS-TV successor, See It Now, in 1951. Columbia Masterworks was also the first recording company to release an album of an entire stage production - the record-breaking 1943 Broadway revival of Shakespeare's Othello, starring Paul Robeson, José Ferrer, and Uta Hagen. A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music from a particular feature film. ... Spoken word is a form of literary art or artistic performance in which lyrics, poetry, or stories are spoken rather than sung. ... Spoken word is a form of literary art or artistic performance in which lyrics, poetry, or stories are spoken rather than sung. ... April 8, 1956: CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow talking to reporters during a stop in Wiesbaden, Germany. ... Fred W. Friendly Fred W. Friendly (October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was the former president of CBS News and the creator, with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now. ... The CBS Radio Network provides news, sports and other programming to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. ... See It Now was a television newsmagazine and documentary broadcast by CBS in the 1950s. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... Title page of the first quarto edition of Othello, published in 1622 The Tragedy of Othello, The Moore of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1603. ... Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was a multi-lingual American actor, athlete, bass-baritone concert singer, writer, civil rights activist, Spingarn Medal winner, and Lenin Peace Prize laureate. ... José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1909 – January 26, 1992), was an actor and film director, born in the Santurce district of San Juan, Puerto Rico. ... Uta Hagen with Paul Robeson in the Theatre Guild production of Othello, which ran on Broadway from 1943 to 1945. ...

Columbia Masterworks' most successful Broadway album was the original cast recording of My Fair Lady, starring Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Stanley Holloway, and Robert Coote. This first album was issued only in mono, but the first stereo recording of My Fair Lady, featuring the same four stars, this time with the London cast, followed in 1959. And in 1964, Columbia Masterworks issued the film soundtrack album of the show, starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn's "singing voice", Marni Nixon. The most successful film soundtrack release on Columbia Masterworks was The Graduate in 1967, featuring the music of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, then the best-selling pop music act on the roster of the parent Columbia label. Partly as a result of the immense popularity of this release, Columbia Masterworks published a series of soundtrack albums involving films that starred Dustin Hoffman, who had played the title character in The Graduate. A cast recording or original cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. ... My Fair Lady is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, based on George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion. ... Sir Reginald Carey Rex Harrison (b. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Stanley Augustus Holloway (October 1, 1890 - January 30, 1982) was a British actor and entertainer famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen. ... Robert Coote (with Robert Ryan) in Berlin Express Robert Coote (February 4, 1909 - November 26, 1982) was a London-born film actor. ... Year 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... Sir Reginald Carey Rex Harrison (b. ... Audrey Hepburn (May 4, 1929 – January 20, 1993) was an Academy Award-winning actress of film and theatre, Broadway stage performer, ballerina, fashion model, and humanitarian. ... Marni Nixon (born February 22, 1930) is a singer whose renown for dubbing the singing voices of featured actresses in movies earned her the sobriquet The Ghostess with the Mostess. She was born Margaret McEathron in Altadena, California and began singing at a young age in choruses. ... The Graduate Original Soundtrack was an album of songs from the soundtrack of Mike Nichols movie The Graduate, featuring many songs from the folk-rock duo Simon and Garfunkel. ... Bridge Over Troubled Water was Simon and Garfunkels last album; the title track was their only number one hit in the United Kingdom. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For the American rock band, see The Graduate (band). ...

Columbia Masterworks was also responsible for the original cast albums of Kiss Me, Kate and South Pacific, as well as for the original stage and film albums of West Side Story, and the original cast recordings of Gypsy: A Musical Fable, The Sound of Music, Flower Drum Song, and Camelot. Kiss Me, Kate is a Tony Award-winning musical with a book by Samuel and Bella Spewack and music and lyrics by Cole Porter. ... South Pacific is a musical play, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. When it first opened on Broadway on April 7, 1949, it was produced by Leland Hayward and directed by Joshua Logan. ... For The Games song, see Westside Story (song). ... Gypsy: A Musical Fable is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. ... The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, based on the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. ... Flower Drum Song was originally a novel by Chinese American author C.Y. Lee. ... The 1960 Original Broadway cast recording album cover Camelot is a 1960 musical play written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederic Loewe. ...

In 1968, the landmark electronic-music album "Switched-on Bach," containing transcriptions of a number of Bach's most famous compositions for the Moog modular synthesizer, was issued on Columbia Masterworks.

Columbia Masterworks was renamed in 1980 to CBS Masterworks Records and separated from the Columbia label. In 1990 it was renamed Sony Classical Records because of the sale of CBS Records to the Sony Corporation. 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... CBS Masterworks Records was a subsidiary of CBS Records. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... Sony Classical was started in 1927 as Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of the American Columbia Records. ... Sony Corporation (Japanese katakana: ソニー) (TYO: 6758), (NYSE: SNE) is a global consumer electronics corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. ...

The Masterworks names lives on in the label's Broadway album label, Columbia Broadway Masterworks, some of whose reissues are often packaged with the familiar bronze logo Columbia design on the CD (and the first version of the Columbia Walking Eye logo). In 2006, Sony BMG consolidated the Columbia Broadway Masterworks line with RCA Victor's Broadway series to form Masterworks Broadway Records.[1] For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... Bertelsmann is a transnational media corporation founded in 1835, based in G tersloh, Germany. ... Sony BMG Music Entertainment is the result of a 50/50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment (part of Sony) and BMG Entertainment (part of Bertelsmann AG) completed in August 2004. ... Masterworks Broadway Records is a record label created by the consolidation of Sony BMGs Broadway theatre music divisions, Columbia Broadway Masterworks and RCA Victor Records Broadway series. ...

See also

• List of record labels