Nimbus

Nimbus Records issued its first LP recordings in 1977. The small factory was built into the courtyard of a Victorian country mansion called Wyastone Leys on the English / Welsh border near Monmouth. The master tapes had been recorded in the Birmingham studio built in the late 1960s by the company's founders. First to be released were recordings by living legends: Vlado Perlemuter playing Ravel, Hugues Cuenod singing Satie's Socrate, the mysterious Romanian pianist Youra Guller, not to mention Bernard Roberts in the complete Beethoven sonatas. The style of the company was set from the outset: to be in control of each step in the recording and manufacturing process, to record using the simplest microphone techniques, and to encourage performers to approach recording in the same spirit as they would a concert.
Over nearly thirty years the catalogue has grown to almost 1,000 titles, with an international flavour. The company has always supported its independence through its LP and CD manufacturing businesses. From the outset this provided a revenue stream to fund recording activity. The label got an enormous increase in funds, beginning in 1984, when Nimbus opened the first CD plant in the UK. Through to the early 1990s the plants were market leaders and with this strength behind it, the label recorded at a dizzying pace. Notable orchestral performers were The Hanover Band, the English String Orchestra under William Boughton, Adam Fischer and the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Tadaaki Otaka. The project to record all the compositions of George Benjamin continues to this day. Under the new umbrella of Wyastone Estate Limited, the company continues with a mixed business base of music recording and disc manufacturing.