Lyrichord Discs is a record label specializing in world music and classical music. In 2015, Multicultural Media acquired the catalog of Lyrichord.
History
The label was founded in 1950 by Peter Fritsch, an Austrian immigrant who moved to America in the 1930s. In the 1940s, he worked as an executive at Musicraft Records before founding Lyrichord. Money for the new label came from his wife, Theresa, after she won a contest to write an advertising jingle. Eventually Fritsch turned the label over to his son, Nick, who ran it with his wife, Lesley Doyel.
Lyrichord concentrated on
classical music,
early music,
world music, and
field recordings
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibrat ...
. According to the obituary of Fritsch in ''
Billboard'', the label "became one of the first to publish the field-work recordings of anthropologists and
ethnomusicologists. Lyrichord's world music catalog features Ituri rainforest recordings by
Colin Turnbull
Colin Macmillan Turnbull (November 23, 1924 – July 28, 1994) was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books '' The Forest People'' (on the Mbuti Pygmies of Zaire) and '' The Mountain People'' (on the ...
."
The label's catalog also includes Jerry Willard,
Julianne Baird
Julianne Baird (born December 10, 1952) is an American soprano best known for her singing in Baroque works, in both opera and sacred music. She has nearly 100 recordings to her credit and is a well-traveled recitalist and soloist with major sym ...
,
Elaine Comparone,
Elizabeth Futral
Susan Elizabeth Futral (born September 27, 1963 in Johnston County, North Carolina) is an American coloratura soprano who has won acclaim (as both singer and actress) throughout the United States as well as in Europe, South America, and Japan.
E ...
, Liz Knowles,
Louis Moyse,
Ama Deus Ensemble, Humbert Lucarelli,
Ernő Balogh and
G. S. Sachdev.
Early classical music has been another of its specialties: "with this recording, Lyrichord Discs continues its outstanding service to early music fanciers."
[Birnbaum, George "Russell Oberlin". ''Journal of Singing - The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing'' 53. 4 (Mar 1997): 21-26.] Lyrichord recorded the first album by folk singer
Dave Van Ronk
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk (June 30, 1936 – February 10, 2002) was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of Ma ...
, entitled ''Skiffle in Stereo'' (1957)
References
External links
Official site
{{Authority control
American independent record labels