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Stack em high6/2/2023 His first musical venture, in the mid-1980s, was a label called Marco Polo: wildly esoteric repertoire with far-Eastern orchestras - and a conductor called Hooey. Things are more expensive and a lot of musicians have emigrated." For the first two or three years, we made a big difference to the standard of living of the average orchestral musician in Slovakia or Hungary. The Eastern orchestras were delighted - they were earning foreign currency for the first time. The Scottish National Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra - they'd have laughed me out of the door. No, the real reason we started in the East was because at first nobody wanted to know about us here. In the West, there's a lot of subsidised recording available. There are a lot of people there trying to supplement their incomes, and they've learnt very quickly. In the East, you have to pay for everything: halls, the chap who carries the music stands. And this will surprise you - it's cheaper to record in the West than in the East now. But in the last three or four years we've been recording more in the West than in the East. "Yes, Eastern Europe is part of the history of our label. But if you value the cultural riches and diversity of the country, you don't put out new recordings at pounds 4.99."īut Heymann, a well-preserved, almost alarmingly fluent 60-year-old German businessman, smiles indulgently - he's heard it all before. We could do that if we were prepared to desert the UK scene. He records in Eastern European countries where you can buy musicians for 1 / 200th of what you pay here. "Don't you think that if we could have put out that quantity of discs at pounds 4.99 we'd have tried it? Klaus Heymann can because he exploits musicians. Alison Wenham, managing director of BMG / Conifer, is firmly in the latter category. Mention Klaus Heymann's name in classical record industry circles and you're sure of a reaction: possibly admiring, more often edgy, sometimes downright hostile. Quite a few of them have been picking up good reviews, top recommendations in the more up-market magazines and CD guides. And Naxos isn't just another cheap label, evergreen classics for those who don't care too much about performance and recording quality. Naxos CDs are just about everywhere: record shops, bookshops, department stores - there they are, prominently placed, offering a wide range of classical repertoire at just pounds 4.99 a disc. Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Anita Roddick, Tim Waterstone - will we be adding Klaus Heymann to that list one day? You may not know the name, but you've almost certainly seen the product.
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