OnClassical is an Italian independent record label. It features classical music mostly for single instrument or chamber ensemble.

History

Founded in April 2003 by Alessandro Simonetto,

harpsichordist A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord. Harpsichordists may play as soloists, as accompanists, as chamber musicians, or as members of an orchestra, or some combination of these roles. Solo harpsichordists may play unaccompanied son ...

, producer and sound engineer, it enlists selected first-prize international contest winners and young talented musicians who do not hold exclusive contracts with

managers Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

or traditional recording houses. ''OnClassical'' was the first Italian label to produce, realize, distribute and sell recordings through the web and amongst the first to apply the new philosophy of Creative Commons to

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

and other files. OnClassical has no relationship with societies of rights collecting due to the facts it only threats

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

music.

Versions

The website started as a simple collection of classical music audio performances of some of the most important pianists such as Maurizio Baglini,

Rustem Hayroudinoff Rustem Hayroudinoff (russian: link=no, Рустем Афзалович Хайрутдинов) is a Russian concert pianist. Tatar by nationality, he was born in Kazan, Russian Federation (Republic of Tatarstan). His father, Afzal Hayroudinoff is a ...

, Gianluca Luisi,

Alberto Nosè Alberto Nosè (born 1979) is an Italian pianist. Biography Born in Villafranca di Verona, Italy, in 1979, Alberto Nosé studied at the Verona Conservatory F. E. Dall’Abaco. He continued his studies with Franco Scala, Boris Petrushansky and Leo ...

, Mariangela Vacatello and other. Only in January 2004 (second version) it evolved as an online record label and a mobile recording studio working with its own equipment. The third, of February 2005 (the 14th), and the last version, of July 2007 (the 14th), have always maintained the graphic unchanged (white blackground with yellow left border) and the main concepts tied to contents and licences.

The late versions

Since 2006 the house only publishes self-produced recordings through a more careful selection. Albums are sold in a CD-quality uncompressed format ( PCM /

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...

, at 44.1 k Hz × 16-

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...

while more recently only Studio Masters FLAC are actually available (recent albums at 88.2 kHz x 24 bit). No

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 ...

are present inside the files. Compressed formats can be found through the online stores such as

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

, iTunes,

emusic eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquartered in New York C ...

Qobuz Qobuz (, commonly mispronounced: ) is a French commercial music streaming and downloading service. It was founded in 2007 by Yves Riesel, expanded to a limited range of overseas markets, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, It ...

, eClassical and many other shops.

The recordings

The recordings are considered of high quality. Some recordings have also been licensed for notable record labels such as

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...

Brilliant Classics Brilliant Classics is a classical music label based in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. It is renowned for releasing super-budget-priced editions on CD of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers. The label also ...

. Today the catalogue includes more than 200 titles distributed by Naxos of America. One of the main discographic projects is the recording of the complete works for clavier of

Buxtehude Buxtehude (), officially the Hanseatic City of Buxtehude (german: Hansestadt Buxtehude, nds, Hansestadt Buxthu ()), is a town on the Este River in Northern Germany, belonging to the district of Stade in Lower Saxony. It is part of the Hamburg ...

and Bohm as performed by Florentine organist and harpsichordist Simone Stella now also released by Brilliant Classics.

Collaborations

OnClassical company furnishes the largest quantity of the classical music for

Jamendo Jamendo is a Luxembourg-based music website and an open community of independent artists and music lovers. A subsidiary of Belgian company AudioValley, and Independent Management Entity (IME) since 2019. Originally, Jamendo was a music platform ...

pro: the commercial program for

music licensing Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without ...

at jamendo.com.Jamendo goes OnClassical
.

References

Other references

Interview of Cameron Parkins @creativecommons.org
XI/2007

External links

* * {{Authority control Classical music record labels Italian independent record labels Netlabels Online music stores of Italy Record labels established in 2003