Music Preserved LIVE

Music Preserved is a registered charity that has devolved from the work of Jon Tolansky and Basil Tschaikov in establishing the Music Performance Research Centre in the 1980s. It now holds an archive of several thousand items. The bulk of those are private, off-air recordings of live classical music performances from the last 80 years. Nearly all the great names, the 'historic artists', in every genre are represented, many in considerable depth, with repertoire they never recorded commercially. The most significant collection is that donated by the Earl of Harewood, former editor of Kobbe, but several other connoisseurs and collectors, among them recording engineers, have passed to Music Preserved their complete collections of broadcast live recordings.

The archive on this website tells you more about the extent of the archive. Most of the original tapes are stored in the Borthwick Library at the University of York, where they are curated by Christopher Webb.

This archive is now being opened up with the launch of a record label, mpLIVE. Focusing on the section of the archive that is in the public domain (performances more than 50 years old) mpLIVE will select some of the most attention-grabbing performances and release them for digital download, initially via www.theclassicalshop.net, which is one of the best-known and most respected digital marketplaces for classical music. Though based in the UK, it sells into the US via the Naxos of America website and worldwide. The releases will retail at budget price and, in accordance with the label's charitable foundation, all profits will go towards making more of the archive available.

Two initial batches of five releases (largely drawn from Lord Harewood's donation) will be followed by two per month. The first batch capitalises on the especial depth of Music Preserved's collection in the operatic field, but subsequent months will contain one operatic release and one non-operatic - symphonic, choral or instrumental. The source materials of these performances are all reel-to-reel tapes or rare acetate discs. These have been remastered by Roger Beardsley, who has a worldwide reputation in the field, to the highest possible standard, with the emphasis kept on the feel of the live performance: these are emphatically not manicured studio artefacts. They are living, involving experiences.

The result should be a consistent series of superb historical releases of more-than-historical interest. The exciting nature of the initial tranche of releases should be the catalyst for considerable interest and publicity both within the historical market, and hopefully across the wider world of the classical music media.

Further information:

• The first ten releases have never been commercially issued in any form
• All mpLIVE releases will be accompanied by a PDF booklet that carries tracklists and booklet notes
• mpLIVE is one of the first download-only classical labels. In an otherwise shrinking industry, the download sector is bucking the trend with increased coverage, prominence and sales year on year