Historic Masters was a historical reissue

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 ...

, based in

Takeley __NOTOC__ Takeley is a village and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. History A number of theories have arisen over the origin of the village's name. One believes the village's name was a corruption from the "Teg-Ley" of ...

, Essex, England, dedicated to making available quality pressings on vinyl of rare

78 rpm A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

recordings of opera singers. Historic Masters Ltd claimed to be, to its knowledge, "the only company in the world issuing 78 rpm discs of historic vocal and operatic material on a regular basis". Historic Masters Ltd appears to have ceased operation in 2011 after the death of Roger Beardsley who was director. The Historic Masters website was not maintained after this and of 2020 is a holding page.

Origins and production history

Originally an offshoot of the ''British Institute of Recorded Sound'' (now the

British Library Sound Archive The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word a ...

), ''Historic Masters'' was the brainchild of the actor, record collector and connoisseur of singers,

Richard Bebb Richard Bebb (12 January 1927 – 12 April 2006) was an English actor of stage, screen and radio. Born Richard Bebb Williams in London, he changed his name to his mother's surname, Bebb, when he took up acting as there was already a British a ...

.Feel, Tom; Stratton, Tony (2001). ''Seventy years of issues: historical vocal 78rpm pressings from original masters 1931-2001''
pp 6–10
Dundurn Press. . The initial ''Historic Masters'' release was planned as a subscriber-only series of twenty reissues, pressed on high quality vinyl using original metal parts from the

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

archive. The ''British Institute of Recorded Sound'' directed the project under the supervision of Bebb with an advisory committee chaired by George Lascelles (Lord Harewood) and including the influential figure of Desmond Shawe-Taylor. After various organisational delays, this first release was eventually despatched to subscribers in 1973. Despite making a profit, the ''British Institute of Recorded Sound'' lost interest in the project. To fill the gap, Historic Masters Ltd, was set up as an independent company. It was able to release its first reissue in 1983: a set of five records produced in a similar manner as before and again distributed on a subscriber-only basis, thereby avoiding excess production. Many more releases followed along similar lines, including some records which had never previously been released in any format. As of 2011, ''Historic Masters'' had released over two hundred discs by historic singers, including larger collections of recordings by

Fernando De Lucia Fernando De Lucia (11 October 1860 or 1 September 1861 – 21 February 1925) was an Italian opera tenor and singing teacher who enjoyed an international career. De Lucia was admired in his lifetime as a striking exponent of verismo parts — ...

Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th centur ...

, Steane, John Barry (2009)
'Reputations - A set of newly-issued 78s illuminates the art of... Dame Nellie Melba'
''Gramophone'', March 2009, p 46. Retrieved 2011-09-19.

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...

and

Francesco Tamagno Francesco Tamagno (28 December 1850 – 31 August 1905) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America.Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages, On 5 February ...

References

External links

Official website (offline as of 2020)
{{Authority control British record labels Reissue record labels