Apparently an announcement is due today, and Hyperion is to be guaranteed its independence, according to Slipped Disc.
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That does at least sound a good deal more positive than one has been led to believe; an announcement today coincidental with the UK Budget might seem to sound like questionable timing but, if its team is to continue more or less as it has done for years and its artists to remain on its books, the consequences of the sale could have been a whole lot worse...Originally posted by Andrew Slater View PostComment
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I wonder if Universal want to stream their catalogue?Del boy: “Get in, get out, don’t look back. That’s my motto!”Comment
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I've just noticed for the first time that the Hyperion website now has a button linking recordings to Spotify and other streamers.Comment
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Looks like a fire sale of CDs going on at Presto - mass deletions I suspect when sold out .Comment
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Yes. It's great . only ever bought 1 Hyperion CD .too expensive .Now stream whole catalogue on SpotifyOriginally posted by gurnemanz View Post"Perfection is not attainable,but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence"Comment
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If you order from the Hyperion website the discs are now sent out by Presto! A glance at the Presto website shows that there are only a few discs left of many desirable items from the Hyperion catalogue. Unfortunately this is down as I post this, but it looks as though large portions of the catalogue are being deleted in hard copy form. I also guess that the Helios budget label will disappear as soon as current stocks are exhausted.Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostComment
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While I haven't kept tabs on Hyperion's product stream (no pun intended) of new releases pre-Universal and post-Universal, my general impression is that Hyperion seems, of late, to be releasing one new release a month, maybe two, while dipping toes into the vinyl market with special vinyl pressings of past albums (mentioned in their October 2025 listing). Maybe my memory is playing me false, but I'd thought that Hyperion had released more albums than that in a given month, at least in "the good old days".
But what prompted this post is perhaps a somewhat curious thought, and perhaps touching on Hyperion's output of new albums of late, about that Ex Cathedra album with the Lionel Sawkins edition that almost wrecked the company in the mid 2000's, with all the legal proceedings and the aftermath. I'd remembered that after Hyperion lost the appeal and got socked with all the legal bills, the label then deleted that album, presumably with the idea of denying Sawkins further royalties. At least it showed then as 'discontinued'. However, with Hyperion now under the Universal umbrella, I'm not seeing any sort of "discontinued" indicator on that album now. I wonder when that changed, especially in light of the recent passing of Lionel Sawkins.Comment
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Can you remind me what the disc was from Lionel Sawkins? I don't recall that episode.Comment
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It was news to me as well - bluestateprommer did give the CD link.Originally posted by MickyD View Post
Hyperion's statement before the appeal is here, it begins:
Hyperion/ Sawkins Copyright Dispute
Statement from Hyperion
In May 2004, Hyperion lost a copyright dispute with Dr Lionel Sawkins, who sued the company for breach of musical copyright that he claimed to own in his editions of the French Baroque composer Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657–1726). Hyperion had used those editions (having paid the appropriate hire fee) in a recording with Ex Cathedra titled ‘Music for The Sun King’, issued in 2002. Hyperion is appealing against the decision.
In order to succeed in a claim to musical copyright, Dr Sawkins has to demonstrate that his editions are original musical works. Fundamentally, Hyperion’s firm view is that an edition of an existing musical work that is a faithful reproduction of Lalande’s music cannot itself be an original musical work.
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Thank you, Aunt Daisy. Presumably the original CDs are collectors' items now?Comment
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I would guess so, but that CD was new to me.Originally posted by MickyD View Post
"Music for The Sun King" is available on Amazon - secondhand (~£25) & new (~£15, could that be a "Presto CD"?).
According to Slipped Disc, Dr Sawkins died in September.Comment
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New to me, too. I already have some good Delalande discs from the golden years of Christie and Herreweghe.Comment
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From spot-checking past 'New Release' pages pre-Universal off Hyperion's website, the general number did seem to hover around 2-3 new releases per month then (the obvious exception being months with no new releases). So the overall picture and trend seem consistent. It's probably reading too much into things, but hopefully this is a sign that the Universal overlords / overladies are taking a fairly hands-off approach to Hyperion, and are just letting Hyperion do its thing as it has done in the past. I've seen this happen too often in other industries where a larger company buys a smaller company, and proceeds to wreck the qualities of the smaller company that made the smaller company worth buying in the first place.
Regarding Sawkins, the Torygraph (...) has an obit for Sawkins here:
Interesting to read citation of William Christie, who can be quite the character himself, saying about Sawkins:
From reading the obit, seems that Sawkins and his wife never had kids, That leaves the question of who, if anyone, inherited that copyright. If no one inherited it (which might be the case here), then that burden is off Hyperion's back, and would explain the sudden availability of that album (presumably after consulting with the lawyers this time), and the price drop. A.com's page currently shows a very high list price for a new copy (near $50), but a used copy at $9.23.'Even before the Hyperion case, Sawkins had cut a divisive figure in early music. The conductor William Christie, discussing his own scholarship of French Baroque music with Gramophone magazine in 1999, described Sawkins as “a very fine scholar [who] just spews forth bile every time he opens his mouth”.'Comment
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