Editing Angel Records

{{Short description|American record label}}
{{Infobox record label <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music -->
| name = Angel Records
| image = Angelrecordslogo.png
| image_size = 100px
| image_alt = <!-- WP:ALT text describing the image -->
| caption = <!-- a caption for the image -->
| parent = [[Universal Music Group]]
| founded = {{start date|1953}}
| founder = [[Dorle Soria]]<br />Dario Soria
| defunct = {{end date|2006}}
| status = Inactive
| distributor = <!-- distributors, separate with commas or <br /> -->
| genre = [[European classical music|Classical music]]<br />[[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]
| country = U.S.
| location = <!-- headquarters city and state -->
| url = <!-- such as "{{URL|www.atlanticrecords.com}}" -->
}}

'''Angel Records''' was a [[record label]] founded by [[EMI]] in 1953. It specialised in [[European classical music|classical music]], but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc.  The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophone Company, EMI and its affiliated companies from 1898. The label has been inactive since 2006, when it dissolved and reassigned its active artists and catalogue while retaining its recent catalogue to sister labels [[Warner Classics|EMI Classics]], [[Erato Records|Virgin Classics]] and [[Manhattan Records]] and its musical theatre artists and catalogue to another sister label, [[Capitol Records]].

==Recording angel==
A [[recording angel]] is a traditional figure that watches over people, marking their actions on a tablet for future judgment. Artist Theodore Birnbaum devised a modified version of this image, depicting a cherub marking grooves into a [[phonograph]] disc with a quill. Beginning in 1898, the [[Gramophone Company]] in the United Kingdom used this angel as a trademark on its record labels and players, as did affiliated companies worldwide.

From 1909, Gramophone and related companies began replacing the angel with the famous "[[His Master's Voice]]" trademark depicting [[Nipper]] the dog listening to a gramophone. The recording angel was retained in areas where the depiction of a dog was deemed offensive, and in North and South America where the His Master's Voice trademark was controlled by [[RCA Victor]].

==Angel Records==
[[File:Gramophone Recording Angel.png|thumb|The Recording Angel as it appeared on early Gramophone discs]]
In 1953 Gramophone successor [[EMI]] lost its U.S. distribution arrangement with [[Columbia Records]], which had elected to make [[Philips Records]] distributor of U.S. Columbia recordings outside North America. In response, EMI established Angel Records in [[New York City]] under the direction of [[record producer]]s [[Dorle Soria]] (December 14, 1900 – July 7, 2002) and her husband Dario Soria (May 21, 1912 – March 28, 1980).<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,860140,00.html |title=New Records |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=November 23, 1953 |access-date=2005-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050410205814/http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,860140,00.html |archive-date=2005-04-10 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,861778,00.html |title=Angel at Two |magazine=Time |date=December 19, 1955 |access-date=2005-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050210230443/http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,861778,00.html |archive-date=2005-02-10 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The couple concentrated on distributing EMI classical recordings in the U.S. market.  They departed the label in 1957, having already accumulated a catalog of about 500 titles, when EMI merged Angel into its recently acquired [[Capitol Records]] subsidiary and moved from imported discs to U.S. production.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,936791,00.html |title=Singing Land |magazine=Time |date=December 23, 1957 |access-date=2005-01-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050305191244/http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,936791,00.html |archive-date=2005-03-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref> However, Angel recordings such as [[Sir Thomas Beecham]]'s 1957 performance of [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]]'s ''[[Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Scheherazade]]'', made in England in stereo with the [[Royal Philharmonic]], were still imported to the U.S.<ref>{{cite web|title=Title Unknown<!-- BOT GENERATED TITLE --> |url=http://www.geocities.com/Paris/1947/lists.html#b-disc |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091020183121/http://geocities.com/Paris/1947/lists.html |archive-date=2009-10-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In the 1960s, EMI introduced the budget [[Seraphim Records]] label, primarily in the United States, to compete with the low-priced [[RCA Victrola]] and Columbia [[Odyssey Records|Odyssey]] labels, which featured historic recordings issued by all three companies. In 1967, as RCA Victrola celebrated the centenary of [[Arturo Toscanini]] with the reissue of  numerous recordings of the Maestro and the [[NBC Symphony Orchestra]], Seraphim reissued some of Toscanini's EMI British recordings with the [[BBC Symphony Orchestra]], made in London's [[Queen's Hall]] from 1937 to 1939; these recordings had formerly been distributed in the U.S. by RCA Victor. Several albums featured Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, including Beecham's 1959 stereo recordings, which were switched from the Angel label to Seraphim. Some historic EMI recordings have appeared in the U.S. on the Seraphim label on CD in recent years.

Since 1990, international use of the Angel mark has been replaced by the [[EMI Classics]] label while it was retained in the U.S.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.emiclassics.com/phpNewSite/about_us/now.php|title=Sinfinimusic - Deutsche Grammophon|website=Emiclassics.com|access-date=6 October 2018}}</ref>

In 1992, Angel expanded into the [[musical theatre]] genre by adding the Angel Broadway imprint.<ref name="Inc.1992">{{cite book|title=Billboard|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QRIEAAAAMBAJ_2|date=4 July 1992|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QRIEAAAAMBAJ_2/page/n39 40]–|issn=0006-2510}}</ref>

Angel achieved its first top 10 album on the [[Billboard 200]] chart in 1994 with [[Chant (Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos album)|''Chant'']], an album of [[Gregorian chant]]s by the Benedictine Monks of [[Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos|Santo Domingo de Silos]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bronson |first1=Fred |title=Monks, in Top 10, Make Surprises a Habit |work=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] |date=30 April 1994 |page=100}}</ref>

In 2001, Angel released newly remastered and expanded editions of the soundtracks of three [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]] films – ''[[Oklahoma! (film)|Oklahoma!]]'', ''[[Carousel (film)|Carousel]]'' and ''[[The King and I (1956 film)|The King and I]]''. The LP versions and original CD versions of these soundtracks had previously been released by Capitol Records.

In the mid-2000s the Angel label was used by Parlophone Records in the UK for a number of releases by American acts such as Diana Ross' ''[[I Love You (Diana Ross album)|I Love You]]'' album<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/14097/diana-ross/ |title = Diana Ross {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/search/albums/i-love-you/ |title = i love you {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company}}</ref> and rapper [[Mims (rapper)|Mims']] single "[[This Is Why I'm Hot]]"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/2266/mims/ |title = MIMS {{!}} full Official Chart History {{!}} Official Charts Company}}</ref>

The label has been dormant since 2006 when it was placed under the [[Blue Note Label Group]], which dissolving and reassigning Angel Records' active artists and catalogue while retaining its recent catalogue to its sister labels [[Warner Classics|EMI Classics]], [[Erato Records|Virgin Classics]] and [[Manhattan Records]] which their also under the Blue Note Label Group and musical theatre artists and catalogue to its other sister label [[Capitol Records]]. EMI Classics and Virgin Classics were sold and absorbed into [[Warner Classics]] and [[Erato Records]] in 2013.<ref>{{Cite tweet|number=358205448177995776|user=WarnerClassics|title=IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: EMI Classics and Virgin Classics join the Warner Music Group family}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[List of record labels]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://archives.nypl.org/mus/18993 Dorle Soria papers, 1930-1991] Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Record labels established in 1953]]
[[Category:1953 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:2006 disestablishments in the United States]]
[[Category:American record labels]]
[[Category:EMI]]
[[Category:Classical music record labels]]