Michel Bernstein

Michel Bernstein (Paris, 1931 – Paris, October 31, 2006) was a French musical producer and founder of several record labels.^[1]

Bernstein's first contact with classical music was hearing the school music teacher play Beethoven on an out-of-tune piano at the age of 15, but thereafter he took a lively interest in music and recordings.^[2][3]

Vendôme

Bernstein founded his first record label, Vendôme, in 1954, which released only 5 LPs.

The first release was the world premiere recording of

Valois was sold to Auvidis in the early 1990s, and subsequently became property of Naïve Records when Naïve acquired Auvidis in 1998.

Astrée

In 1975 Bernstein founded his third label, Astrée. The focus of the label was on 17th Century French music, for organ, harpsichord, viol and lute. The motto of the label was Deffense & Illvstration de la Mvsiqve Française, parodying the manifesto of Joachim du Bellay for poetry, and printed on the first 39 discs released.^[7]

Astrée, along with Harmonia Mundi of

In 1992, Bernstein founded his fourth label, Arcana, in Nantes. A few artists such as Rinaldo Alessandrini and Fabio Biondi assisted Bernstein in making recordings without payment to help the new label get started.^[9]

Again Arcana concentrated on early music, with new artists

Bernstein suffered a heart attack and died while setting up the microphones for a recording session for Dialogos, of repertoire connected with Abbo of Fleury.^[10]

After a hiatus in activity, since January 2008 the Arcana label has been managed by 551 Media S.r.l., Omegna, Italy, with the reissue of recordings by Mala Punica, Crawford Young and the Ferrara Ensemble, and new recording began again in 2009 with a disc by La Reverdie, Sacri Sarcasmi. The label subsequently passed into the portfolio of Outhere.

References