From its earliest days - when it was The Gramophone Company - EMI Classics has gathered the finest collection of classical artists, beginning with Melba and Patti, Chaliapin and Paderewski, and has made some of the most notable recordings of the century.

Technology has often made them obsolete. The advent of stereo recording, for example, in the fifties forced the company to remake the entire LP catalogue. By 1964 it had 500 stereo titles, and many were generally thought to include the best performances and recordings ever made.

Sir John Barbirolli Photo © Godfrey MacDomnic

It was not history that made them notable. They were very simply the finest of performances, and judgements that were made about them when they were first released have been sustained to a remarkable extent over the years.

Because EMI Classics is convinced that novelty is not a sufficient guarantee of quality, it has now gathered together a remarkable series of great performances from its golden age of recording, entitled Great Recordings of the Century. The series was launched internationally in October 1998, and in 2005 will release its 151st issue.

EMI Classics' golden age happened to occur when HMV was its principal label and a fox terrier called Nipper became its worldwide symbol of quality and won the hearts of everyone in the country - and not just music lovers.

And so - to provide a clear and perhaps nostalgic definition for its venture - the series is being issued in selected territories with the classic Nipper logo - the personification of all that "His Master's Voice" came to mean in the development of British music. In territories outside EMI's copyright of the 'Dog and Trumpet', the series is issued with the distinctive 'Angel' logo.

"People who are worried about the state of the recording industry today," said Theo Lap, Vice President, International Marketing at EMI Classics, "forget what record-making did for British music. It was a contract from EMI that gave Beecham the confidence to found the LPO. And it was the same source that made it possible for Walter Legge to establish the Philharmonia.

"And, although it is not perhaps clear to every buyer of classical recordings, it is important to understand that investment in recording technology can sustain and refresh great performances from the past as much as those for which the present and future generations of great artists will be responsible."

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