Gimell Records was established in 1980 by Peter Phillips and Steve Smith, specifically to record the work of the British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars.[1] As of June 2024 its catalogue numbers 60 original albums and 15 compilation albums. The label "performed a pioneering role in the re-appraising of unaccompanied sacred choral music of the 15th and 16th centuries."[2] According to Hyperion Records, Gimell was the first "single-artist label", preceding other similar labels by several years. It was also the first independent record label to receive the Gramophone Record of the Year award, achieving this feat in 1987 with a recording of Josquin des Prez.[3]
Name
The label was named after the technique “gymel”, a corruption of the Latin word “gimellus”, meaning a twin, which was found in Tudor manuscripts where a part is twinned with another part. Phillips explained, "You have to understand that in those days the music wasn't written in score; it was written in parts, so you'd only see your part. If you were singing your part and you saw the word ‘gimell’ it had to be decided in rehearsal that some of you singing that part would have to look elsewhere on the page, or even pick up another book and find your part."[4]
History
Steve Smith, a music and sound recording student on the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey, met Peter Phillips, a student at St John's College, Oxford, when Smith recorded The Tallis Scholars as part of a student project at the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford in 1976.[5] After graduation, and unable to find a suitable recording contract for a Tallis Scholars' album – Phillips had unsuccessfully approached Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and EMI[6] – Phillips and Smith set up their own company, Gimell Records.[7][8] Of this Phillips said, "Not only were the big labels not interested in us – which I can understand because we were very new at the time – but also it was clear that they had no interest in the repertory that we wanted to do."[9] The choir's first LP was recorded at Merton College in March 1980.[10] They would continue to record there until 1987, returning in 2005.[11]
In mid-1996, Philips Classics, part of Polygram Classics, acquired a majority share of Gimell Records.[12] This was just before Philips Classics was "subsequently swallowed up by industry giant, Universal".[13] Tallis Scholars' recordings were temporarily removed from the catalogue, but Phillips and Smith regained control and re-established Gimell in 2000.[14] Its first new issue after this hiatus was in 2000, Missa si bona suscepimus by Cristóbal de Morales.[15]
Recording technology
Gimell's founding coincided with the rise of the compact disc[16] and Phillips and Smith "recognised early on how the clarity of the digital sound could benefit Renaissance choral music."[17] In 1984 Gimell was the first label to place a commercial order with a British CD manufacturer.[18]
Gimell re-launched its website in 2007. It was only the second website globally to sell high resolution downloads. The following year the site was the first to sell FLAC surround sound downloads.[19] In 2017 Gimell announced it would stop selling CDs and downloads from its website, which resulted in an immediate spike in sales, exceeding sales for the entire previous year.[20]
In 2012 E. L. James published her best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey which referenced Thomas Tallis's 40-part motet Spem in alium.[22] As a direct result, sales of Gimell's 1985 album Spem in Alium "outsold even the tenor Luciano Pavarotti", putting it at number one in the British UK Classical Charts.[23] The subsequent release of Fifty Shades of Grey: The Classical Album by EMI later in the year saw Gimell at the top of the charts once more.[24] James was quoted as saying "I am delighted to have introduced so many of my readers to this amazing 16th century piece of music... the recording from the Tallis Scholars is particularly special.”[25]
Awards
Year
Nominee / work
Award
Result
1987
Recording of the Year for Josquin's Missa Pange lingua and Missa La sol fa re mi
Live in Rome: Celebrating Palestrina's 400th Anniversary – DVD (1994)
Playing Elizabeth's Tune: The Tallis Scholars Sings William Byrd – DVD and SACD in conjunction with BBC (2004)
Francisco Guerrero: Missa Surge propera – SACD (2006)
Allegri's Miserere and Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli – Blu-ray (2014)
Other artists
In 1999, during the brief period when it was a part of Philips Classics, Gimell produced Acantus' Sacred Songs of Medieval Italy and Anúna's Deep Dead Blue.[28]
^Insert, insert (2017). Know-It-All Classical Music:The 50 most significant genres, composers and forms. New York, USA: Wellfleet Press. p. 43. ISBN9781577151500.
