Thomas Tallis: The Complete Works

Chapelle du Roi
directed by Alistair Dixon

Signum Records and the Total Tallis

by Craig Zeichner

Reprinted with permission from the Spring 2005 issue of Early Music America. Copyright 2005 Early Music America, Inc.

Signum Records, a British independent recording label, made headlines recently with its January 2005 release of a nine-volume complete works of Thomas Tallis, performed by Chapelle du Roi. “This is Alistair’s [Dixon, Chapelle du Roi director] passion,” says Steve Long, Signum’s director. “We used to record the Tallis Scholars discs for Gimell, and Alistair realized we were the ones he wanted to record Tallis with,” says Long.

At the time, Signum was solely a record production company. But the Tallis project propelled it into something bigger. “At first Alistair thought he was going to employ us to produce it,” Long says. “Then when he discovered how expensive it was, he decided it wasn’t such a good idea. I asked him how expensive it would be for us to pay the artists, and I discovered that wasn’t such a good idea either. Between us we realized we had everything we needed to make a record label.”

Launching a record label, especially a classical music label, can be perilous, but Long and Signum didn’t enter the arena blindly. “We’ve been in the music business since the late 1980s, providing technical production and recording services for the majors and indies. We branched out in the early ’90s, making our own recordings and licensing them to record companies.

“The original idea was to make the nine volumes of Tallis, culminating in the release in 2005 of the complete anniversary set. It was a long-term project that wasn’t intended to be anything more than that,” says Long. In other words, Signum would play record label for the Tallis recordings, and then go back to its other business. But when the first three discs in the series were ready to go, “we discovered there was interest in distribution circles and interest from other artists. Having the infrastructure in place, we thought we could branch out into other areas,” says Long.

In addition to Chapelle du Roi, Signum is now home to other noteworthy early music ensembles, including Charivari Agréable and Musica Antiqua of London. “There’s still a healthy regard for early music, and that’s very pleasing to me,” says Long. “Everybody said the bubble burst in the early ’90s—that’s when we made the Roger Norrington recordings for EMI and that was the heyday—but it mirrored the growth of the CD market: a little unhealthy and too much activity. There were a lot of recordings but too small a market for them. That’s now nicely balanced, there’s a very healthy early music market but its not being overfed.”

Although nine of the Tallis discs have already been released individually, compiling them also into a boxed set seemed a good bet. Long explains, “We realized that many early music lovers share a collector’s mentality; these are people who buy two or three volumes and are then hooked into it. If someone is coming to the music new, being able to sell them the complete works in one box at what is actually a very good price is good. It was brave but, after all, it’s only 10 discs—it’s not like the complete Haydn symphonies. And after all, there’s something quite satisfying about selling 10 CDs in one transaction.”

Signum’s release schedule has been growing recently, and it still does about a dozen early music projects a year. Finding them is not difficult. “A lot of artists [who already record on the major labels] are looking for deals because they are not happy with the majors,” says Long. “For example, we now have the King’s Singers, who had worked exclusively with EMI. We are very open-minded about what we will put on the label.” The opportunity to record repertoire that has less than blockbuster potential, and to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, are among the lures of working with smaller labels like Signum.

Signum’s current catalog features mostly early music, but it is diversifying. “About a year and a half ago we branched out into contemporary, or non-early music,” says Long. “Having all the infrastructure in place, it seemed foolish to concentrate solely on a small niche. We are being approached by many artists with worthwhile projects, and it would have been a shame to say, ‘it’s not early music so we can’t take it.’ This has expanded the release schedule quite a lot, and we have to be careful about becoming too big and diverse too quickly. However, we are fortunate now that communications and the Internet make things easier for people to find what they are looking for. Do an Internet search for Thomas Tallis and you find us. Ten years ago that wasn’t possible. So we try to plan ahead a year at a time, and while it’s still not an easy business, we are chugging along quite nicely. So watch this space.”

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