Musical Heritage Society was an American mail-order

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 ...

founded in New York City in 1962 by Michael "Mischa" Naida (1900–1991), co-founder of

Westminster Records Westminster Records was an American classical music record label, issuing original recordings until 1965. It was co–founded in 1949 by Mischa Naida (who later founded Musical Heritage Society), the owner of the Westminster Record Shop in New Y ...

, and T. C. Fry Jr. (1926–1996).

Background

After a small initial group of pseudonymous issues—licensed from the Telemann Society and

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...

—MHS issued many recordings licensed from

Erato In Greek mythology, Erato (; grc, Ἐρατώ) is one of the Greek Muses, which were inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. The name would mean "desired" or "lovely", if derived from the same root as Eros, as Apollonius o ...

. Eventually the label issued most of the Erato catalogue, including discs previously issued on several US retail labels. MHS also drew on such catalogues as Amadeo, Angelicum, Arcophon, Boston, Christophorus Records, Da Camera, Expériences Anonymes, Hispavox, Iramac, Library of Recorded Masterpieces,

Lyrichord Discs 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 ...

, Muza, Pelca, Somerset,

Supraphon Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, oriented mainly towards publishing classical music and popular music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers. History The Supraphon name was first registered as a trademark in 1932. ...

Unicorn-Kanchana Unicorn-Kanchana is a British independent record label founded by John Goldsmith (died 2020), a former London police officer. Originally known as Unicorn Records, the name Kanchana was added later to distinguish the company from Unicorn Digital o ...

, Valois, and

Harmonia Mundi Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name ''harm ...

. The company operated on a subscription basis similar to

book clubs Book club may refer to: * Book discussion club, a group of people who meet to discuss a book or books that they have read ** Literature circle, a group of students who meet in a classroom to discuss a book or books that they have read * Book sal ...

, offering monthly selections and the opportunity to order further from catalogues regularly issued to subscribers. MHS also offered albums of jazz music through their Jazz Heritage Society subsidiary, also as a club-style subscription service, licensing and re-releasing under their Jazz Heritage label older titles from other labels such as

Verve Verve may refer to: Music * The Verve, an English rock band * ''The Verve E.P.'', a 1992 EP by The Verve * ''Verve'' (R. Stevie Moore album) * Verve Records, an American jazz record label Businesses * Verve Coffee Roasters, an American coffee ho ...

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

Blue Note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

, and others.

Company changeovers and catalogue

In 1976, Naida sold the firm to Albert Nissim (1923–2010), who moved the offices to

Oakhurst, New Jersey Oakhurst is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) within Ocean Township, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States.

. Albert Nissim's two sons, Jeffrey R. (born 1954) and Robert, assumed most of the duties for the family business. By 1980, the label had a catalog of over 3,000 discs, most of which were licensed from small European companies. From May 1981 until 1999, MHS produced and sold retail its own recordings using the label MusicMasters. After that, MHS licensed standard repertory from

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 ...

and

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

. In July 2011, Passionato LLC, based in

Montclair, New Jersey Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. As ...

, purchased Musical Heritage Society, which at the time, had over 100,000 CD,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

, and

SACD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips, Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows mul ...

titles in its database. Passionato is a commercial provider of

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement milita ...

-free classical music downloads. James G. Glicker (born 1954) is CEO and founder of Passionato. In 2022, they reactivated their website, hosting archival information about past releases and links to external sites where digital versions of some of those releases could be streamed or purchased.The Musical Heritage Society
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References

{{Authority control Defunct record labels of the United States Jazz record labels