John G. Deacon wrote:

>Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]> wrote (with regard to Lyrita):
>
>>I gather that apart from spending his own money on the project, the
>>eccentric director tended to sit quietly in the recording booth; not
>>interfering, but sweating on every note.
>
>And then contradicts himself with:
>
>>Just about everything Lyrita did was sponsored, by the way (ie, in real
>>terms, they took very little risk with their recordings); which makes
>>their lousy reissue policies doubly culpable....

You seem to have misunderstood what i have written:  the _eccentric
director_ i was referring to was Ken Russell, not the owner of Lyrita,
whose name escapes me.  This was possibly always going to an ambiguous
wording, though, because there are plenty of first, second & third hand
stories to attest to the Lyrita boss's own eccentricities.

>However I was the Lyrita distributor during the period from about 1980
>and came to know the owner of Lyrita as well as anyone could.  If such
>sponsorship applied to "just about everything" why, then, was this not
>mentioned on all the LP covers as frequently as this would have required?

Sponsors don't always want their names on labels.

The RVW & Holst always did, of course; & many government organisations
do (but not all:  the NEA's sponsorship of Delos's USAmerican symphonies
recordings isn't always credited - Hovhaness's Mt St Helens's symphony for
eg...  that information came from the Seattle S website, not the label -
but the Polish Ministry of Culture & Art is clearly acknowledged in the
Naxos Pebderecki cycle); but private individuals who stump up the cash to
support recordings often wish to remain anon...  for eg, i've never been
able to establish who mysterious Australian was who stumped up the cash to
start cpo's Frankel cycle (except to say it isn't me).

The Rex Foundation was also notorious in its early years for not
publicising its sponsorship of discs, so much so that Simpson didn't
originally know his symphony recordings were being subsidised by people who
called themselves deadheads...  & was reputedly most fascinated by the idea
when suitably informed.  I suspect - though don't know - that Ken Russell
put his name (as well as his money) on the Lyrita recordings as part of his
general propagandising for British music...  publicity would certainly fit
his particular agenda more than some privately well off citizen who wanted
to spread some tax loss money indulging a childhood musical love.

It's been known to happen....

(It probably should go with saying where private companies are expanding
their ensemble sponsorship by putting their group on disc (ie, Halifax's
push to record the (UK) Northern Ballet in Feeney's Dracula...  also Naxos)
always want to see their names prominently displayed on the cover)

The cruciality of sponsorship dollars in the Lyrita story is well known:
when the discs where originally reissured with some fanfare in the UK,
hardly a commentator missed drawing attention to the fact; although
none viewed the situation as cynically as i now do (probably because the
original splash release led people to believe that the whole valuable back
catalog would reappear; whereas we now know that it didn't).  There may
have been been some unsponsored Lyrita recordings; but when i've really
been in the position to dig to the bottom of the funding cycle of a
particular disc, i've always been able to find one, so remain skeptical
to any claims to the contrary.

In terms of distribution, though, i'm referring to the CD reissues of
the 90s, not anything which happened in the vinyl era; so we're obviously
talking at cross purposes.  After the first big splash (around 92?), very
few Lyrita titles ever got to Australia; & those which did were marked up
substantially (sometimes a full Naxos disc) over domestic full price...
as a result, i bought most of my Lyrita CDs from cutout bins a year of so
later while large numbers of wonderful recordings remained locked in the
company's vaults because the label wasn't selling.

I'll leave this part of the story to avoid further offence; but it's hard
not to the cyncial about the later years of the Lyrita story; & even harder
not to wish that someone would in the position to buy up the back catalog
of tapes.

All the best,

Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>