Naxos (record label)

Naxos Records is a record label specializing in budget-priced classical music CDs.

Related Topics:
Record label - Classical music - CDs

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Founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong, the label today is one of the biggest classical music labels, and has recently begun distributing DVDs as well. As of 2005, it is the largest-selling classical label in the world.

Related Topics:
1987 - Klaus Heymann - German - Hong Kong - DVD - 2005

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Naxos tries to avoid repertoire duplication. Compared to other major record labels, the Naxos selection may be shallower in terms of interpretations of a given masterwork. For example, the Naxos catalog has only three orchestral recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, with the conductors Bela Drahos, Richard Edligner and Richard Strauss (the last a historic recording), compared to Deutsche Grammophon, which has Abbado, Bernstein, Böhm, Karajan, Kleiber, Thielemann, some of whom have recorded the piece on more than one occasion.

Related Topics:
Beethoven - Richard Strauss - Deutsche Grammophon

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On the other hand, the selection of repertoire is very broad, including fringe repertoire such as the Symphonies of Nikolai Myaskovsky, much of twentieth-century classical music, and pieces by Johann Pachelbel other than his famous Canon in D. Its enterprise is seen in the selection of lesser recorded works like Japanese classical music, Jewish-American music, film music and early music.

Related Topics:
Nikolai Myaskovsky - Twentieth-century - Johann Pachelbel - Japan - Jewish-American - Film music - Early music

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In recent years the label has branched out into spoken-word audiobooks, SACDs and DVD-Audio, jazz and world music.

Related Topics:
Audiobook - SACD - DVD-Audio - Jazz - World music

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Naxos's aggressive pricing policies is one crucial factor prompting budget-line releases of other major classical record companies' earlier recordings.

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