Deryk Barker, writing of Naxos:

>I was speaking to their Canadian  representative who told me they'd
>had to slow down their release schedule and that they had over
>*300* recordings in the can...

In an article in the August Gramophone headed "Naxos expansion will signal
more releases", we're told that HNH is splitting in two:  HNH International
for distribution and marketing, Naxos-Music for rights issues and Internet
development.  They're discussing world-wide collaboration with Edel, a
German CD manufacturer who would own up to 25% of HNH.  Klaus Heymann said,
"We have 400 extra [releases] in the pipeline this year, and 150 more are
planned for next year." Consideration is being given to either selling the
company or floating it on the stock market.

I often have to wait longer than I think reasonable for Naxos CDs and
while this may in part be the fault of the local distributor, I think
it also has something to do with Naxos's diversification of pressing
companies, so a single manufacturer seems a good idea (or am I missing
something here?) The selling of the company I find worrying, but we can
perhaps take some comfort from Heymann's comment that being a publicly
traded company "would mean always being concerned with making profits for
shareholders, and we don't record things like the complete Penderecki
symphonies with a view to making a profit every time."

Richard Pennycuick
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