Desto Records was an American

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

. It was founded in 1951 by Horace Grenell who had a mail order business of selling children's records and was looking to expand genres. The first issue was a three disc edition of ''

The Beggars Opera ''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...

''. It released albums sporadically over the next decade, but in 1964 expanded to become one of the main distributors of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included seria ...

by American composers. Artists published included

Dominick Argento Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas '' Postcard from Morocco'', '' Miss Havisham's Fire'', ''The Masque of An ...

Leslie Bassett Leslie Raymond Bassett (22 January 1923 – 4 February 2016) was an American composer of classical music. Bassett received the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Bassett had a lifelong relationship with the University of Michigan School of Music. ...

Jack Beeson Jack Hamilton Beeson (July 15, 1921 – June 6, 2010) was an American composer. He was known particularly for his operas, the best known of which are ''Lizzie Borden'', ''Hello Out There!'', and ''The Sweet Bye and Bye''. Early life Born in Muncie ...

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...

Henry Brant Henry Dreyfuss Brant (September 15, 1913 – April 26, 2008) was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born ...

Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...

George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...

Norman Dello Joio Norman Dello Joio (January 24, 1913July 24, 2008) was an American composer active for over half a century. He won a 1957 Pulitzer Prize#Letters, Drama, Pulitzer Prize in 1957. Life Dello Joio was born Nicodemo DeGioio in New York City to It ...

Irving Fine Irving Gifford Fine (December 3, 1914 – August 23, 1962) was an American composer. Fine's work assimilated neoclassical, romantic, and serial elements. Composer Virgil Thomson described Fine's "unusual melodic grace" while Aaron Copland noted ...

Lou Harrison Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer, music critic, music theorist, painter, and creator of unique musical instruments. Harrison initially wrote in a dissonant, ultramodernist style similar to his form ...

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...

Ulysses Kay Ulysses Simpson Kay (January 7, 1917 in Tucson, Arizona, Tucson, Arizona – May 20, 1995 in Englewood, New Jersey, Englewood, New Jersey) was an American composer. His music is mostly neoclassicism, neoclassical in style. Life and career Kay, the ...

Ezra Laderman Ezra Laderman (29 June 1924 – 28 February 2015) was an American composer of classical music. He was born in Brooklyn. Biography Laderman was of Jewish heritage. His parents, Isidor and Leah, both emigrated to the United States from Poland. Thou ...

Otto Luening Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music. Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene, a conducto ...

Peter Mennin Peter Mennin (born Mennini) (May 17, 1923 in Erie, Pennsylvania – June 17, 1983 in New York City) was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and i ...

Gian Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept h ...

Douglas Moore Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is generally charact ...

Lawrence Moss Lawrence Kenneth Moss (November 18, 1927 – June 24, 2022) was an Americans, American composer of contemporary classical music. He was born in Los Angeles. He held a B.A. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.A. from the Eas ...

Ned Rorem Ned Rorem (October 23, 1923 – November 18, 2022) was an American composer of contemporary classical music and writer. Best known for his art songs, which number over 500, Rorem was the leading American of his time writing in the genre. Althou ...

Gunther Schuller Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, educator, publisher, and jazz musician. Biography and works Early years Schuller was born in Queens, New York City, ...

Roger Sessions Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher and musicologist. He had initially started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved further towards more complex harmonies and ...

Joel Spiegelman Joel Spiegelman is an American composer, conductor, concert pianist, harpsichordist, recording artist, arranger, author and teacher. As a composer, Spiegelman has been widely known for his blending of techniques from traditional classical music, ...

William Grant Still William Grant Still Jr. (May 11, 1895 – December 3, 1978) was an American composer of nearly two hundred works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works fo ...

William Sydeman William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Randall Thompson Randall Thompson (April 21, 1899 – July 9, 1984) was an American composer, particularly noted for his choral works. Career Randall attended The Lawrenceville School, where his father was an English teacher. He then attended Harvard University, ...

Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar Distric ...

, and

Charles Wuorinen Charles Peter Wuorinen (; June 9, 1938 – March 11, 2020) was an American composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. He performed his works and other 20th-century music as pianist and conductor. He composed more than ...

. In 1974 Grenell sold the label to the owners of CMS Records of

Mount Vernon, New York Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of t ...

. The two companies were merged and the label was discontinued in 1982. In 1983 most of the master recordings were sold to KEM Enterprises, Inc. who began reissuing them in the form of Compact Discs under a new label name Phoenix USA Compact Discs. As of 2020, Phoenix USA has made the recordings available as Streams and Downloads via Itunes, Spotify, Amazon.com. The catalog of recordings at Phoenix USA may be reviewed at http://www.phoenixcd.com

References

* {{Authority control Classical music record labels American independent record labels Record labels established in 1964 Companies disestablished in the 1980s

See also

References