Odeon Records

• 1. A Paris Name for a Berlin Label

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  Odeon Records borrowed its name and its logo from a theatre in Paris, the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, even though the label itself was born in Berlin. It was founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company. Within a few decades its discs were being sold in places as far apart as Greece, Siam and Estonia. How did a German company assemble catalogues for so many countries? What happened when it sent engineers to record the music of India? And why was a label with this long a history brought back to life in the twenty-first century?

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• 2. The Lindström Web

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  Carl Lindström founded his company in 1897, and it was from him that Straus and Zuntz bought the business. They turned it into a public company, the Carl Lindström A.G. In 1903 they also purchased Fonotipia Records, along with its Odeon-Werke International Talking Machine Company.

  The Odeon label first appeared in Germany that same year, and the company applied for a U.S. trademark at once. On the 30th of January 1904, Odeon became part of the Carl Lindström Company. That group also owned Beka Records, Parlophone, Fonotipia, Lyrophon, Homophon and other labels.

  In 1926 the English Columbia Graphophone Company acquired Lindström. In 1931 Columbia merged with Electrola and other labels to form EMI. That merger created the owner that would hold Odeon's catalogue for decades.

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• 3. Two Sides and Four Discs

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  While competing companies were still selling discs with sound on only one face, Odeon made its records double-sided. That choice was an early mark of difference for the label.

  In 1909, Odeon released a four-disc set of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, with Hermann Finck conducting the London Palace Orchestra. It was the first recording of a large orchestral work. It may also have been the first record album. The Berlin plant that pressed such sets had a reach far wider than Germany.

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• 4. The Export Machine

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  In the 1920s and 1930s, about 70% of German Odeon production was exported. The Berlin plant recorded, processed and shipped records to many countries.

  Some of those markets had extensive national catalogues of their own. The source names Greece, Scandinavia, India, all of Arabia, the Netherlands, Estonia, Portugal, South and Central America, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, China, the Dutch East Indies, Siam and the Balkan countries. Some Odeon recordings were also leased to the American Okeh Records for distribution in the United States. Okeh turns out to have its own tangled connection to the label's earlier American attempts.

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• 5. Odeon in America

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  Odeon discs were first manufactured in America in 1905 or 1906, by the American Record Company, for export only. These were lateral-cut 78 discs, ten and three-quarter inches across, made of blue shellac. The business ended in 1907, when Columbia sued the American Record Company for patent infringement.

  Lindström tried again through Otto Heineman, an employee who was living in America when the First World War broke out. Stuck in New York, Heineman created the Otto Heineman Phonograph Supply Company in 1915. Four years later he started his own label, Okeh Records.

  In 1919, Okeh began issuing foreign recordings in the United States on the Odeon label. Traffic also ran the other way. During the 1920s, Odeon issued American jazz records in Germany, Italy, France and Spain. In the 1930s and 1940s the label sold what it called its Swing Music Series.

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• 6. Recording India

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  Odeon recorded and issued more than 2,700 titles of Indian music between 1900 and 1940. Its shellac disc issues came in two phases, the first from 1912 to 1916 and the second from 1932 to 1938.

  During the first phase, engineers travelled to many cities to capture the diverse regional music of India. The discs were then produced in Berlin and shipped back. In the second phase the company was based in Mumbai and Madras. The Second World War and the trade embargoes that followed forced Odeon to wind up its operations in India.

  The output was broad, covering "drama songs, speeches, folk music, classical music, drama sets, skits and plays, vocal and instrumental music". It has been estimated that about 600 titles survive in private collections. The British Museum has digitised some of these records, and they can be heard free in an online archive.

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• 7. After the War

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  After the Second World War, Odeon continued as an EMI subsidiary in many non-English-speaking markets. These included West Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Japan and Latin America. The dome logo stayed in use in most of those places, although each market also had its own label designs.

  In September 2012, most EMI properties were sold to its former rival Universal Music Group. Universal kept the right to reissue Odeon's post-war Japanese, Latin American and German catalogues, plus select European ones. In February 2013, Warner Music Group acquired the rest of EMI. That brought it the reissue rights to Odeon's French, Scandinavian, Spanish and most other European releases, in line with the European Commission's divestiture conditions.

  Universal Music Enterprises manages UMG's Odeon catalogue with Parlophone, while WEA International handles Warner's share. In October 2018, Universal Music Germany revived the label to release the third album by the brass pop band Querbeat, titled Randale & Hurra.

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