L’Oiseau-Lyre
L’Oiseau-Lyre is a record label that specializes primarily in pre-Romantic art music performed on period instruments. They have been around for some time, and have made many fine recordings, both as an independent, and then as part of Decca. But when Decca merged with Philips and Deutsche Grammophon as part of Universal Classics several years back, L’Oiseau-Lyre–like several other fine imprints, including Archiv, Argo, Gimell and others–was essentially dismantled. The bulk of its catalog was deleted, and any reissues were made under the Decca name.
I don’t keep as close track of the classical music recording business as I did even three years ago, but I see now that L’Oiseau-Lyre is back, and some of their titles are being reissued. Some are coming out again on disc, but many others in digital only. My stated opposition to MP3 stands, and I regret that the label would choose this course, especially for the handful of releases I don’t have but wish I did. Nevertheless, it is good to see some activity.
I have dozens of L’Oiseau-Lyre discs in my collection already, many from c.2002 when I was undertaking a Christopher Hogwood-related buying spree. Even then, a vast majority of that label’s titles had already gone out of print, and I did most of my buying on eBay, sometimes spending far more than the discs would have cost new. But my collection is the better for it, and will be better still when I can fill in some gaps with newly reissued L’Oiseau-Lyre recordings.
Filed under: Music on January 25th, 2008 | No Comments »