Quintessence Records started in 1976. Quintessence was formed by

Pickwick International Pickwick Records was an American record label and British record distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo (later changing its name to Internati ...

Inc. as a budget label. Pickwick’s trademark for Quintessence was filed on December 10, 1976 with the initial Q made to look like a

clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a Musical notation, musical symbol used to indicate which Musical note, notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff (music), stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to ...

symbol. The label was devoted to the licensed reissue of historic classical recordings. The idea was printed on the record jackets: "Critically acclaimed recordings of the basic repertoire which belong in every library of great music" and also promised these were "Carefully remastered from the original master tapes, recut on the latest Neumann

lathes A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to cre ...

and pressed on virgin vinyl." R. Peter Munves was the executive responsible for the label. Munves had earlier worked for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

and

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also A ...

classical music divisions. He said to ''Time'' magazine in 1971 “You can call me the P.T. Barnum of the classics”. Many of the Quintessence records were originally included in ''Reader's Digest'' boxed sets produced by

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

for

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...

. The producer of many of these sets was Charles Gerhardt and the engineer

Kenneth Wilkinson Kenneth Ernest Wilkinson (28 July 1912 – 13 January 2004) was an audio engineer for Decca Records, known for engineering classical recordings with superb sound quality. After working for small recording companies, Wilkinson was taken onto th ...

. Conductors such as

John Barbirolli Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 194 ...

and

Jascha Horenstein Jascha Horenstein (russian: Яша Горенштейн; – 2 April 1973) was an American conductor. Biography Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother (Marie Ettinger) came fr ...

and pianist

Earl Wild Earl Wild (November 26, 1915January 23, 2010) was an American pianist known for his transcriptions of jazz and classical music. Biography Royland Earl Wild was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1915. Wild was a musically precocious child and ...

were featured in these reissues. Series issued included: *“Critics Choice” (beginning with PMC 7001) *“Classics for Joy” (beginning possibly with PMC 7010) *“Stereo Sound Spectaculars” (beginning with vol. 1 on PMC 7063) Quintessence also licensed and reissued recordings from

CBS Records CBS Records may refer to: * CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company * CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990 * CBS Records (2006), founde ...

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 conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

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 ''ha ...

Melodiya Melodiya ( rus, links=no, Мелодия, t=Melody) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) record label. It was the state-owned major record company of the Soviet Union. History Melodiya was established in 1964 as the "All-Union Gramophone Record Firm ...

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

, RCA, and

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. T ...

. Some of the material was original

monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

but replaced by “electronic stereo” versions. Many of the record jackets included discographical details such as dates, locales, producers and engineers. The records listed for $3.98 in the 1970s but can be found in the second hand market for two dollars or less. Quintessence released both monaural and

stereophonic Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

discs in the 33-1/3 rpm LP format. LPs were issued in the PMC 7000 series (the P standing for Pickwick) beginning with PMC 7001: Dvorak Symphony No. 9 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein (recorded by Decca for Reader's Digest at Walthamstow Assembly Hall in January 1962). Multiple LP sets were issued in the #PC-3000 series, the # standing for the number of discs. Some of these same recordings were later reissued on CD by Intersound, Inc.

References

General references

"The Peddler (R. Peter Munves),"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', June 28, 1971
Quintessential Quintessence
* U.S. Trademark Electronics Search System (TESS) – Registration number 1096575 for Quintessence; 1102560 is for Classics for Joy

Inline citations

External links

Intersound: Quintessence Digital CDQ Series Discography
{{Authority control American record labels Classical music record labels Record labels established in 1976 1976 establishments in the United States