The World Record Club Ltd. was the name of a company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz, through a membership mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s.
In addition to titles imported from recording companies like Everest Records and Westminster Records, which it obtained on franchise, it made a series of recordings of international artists using its own engineers. Although often of great musical interest and very acceptable technical quality, these recordings do not appear in shop catalogues of the time as they were not available new through record shops.
The label was taken over by EMI in 1965 but continued to be used as a sub-label for mail order, covering a wide range of musical genres, and distributing in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Early days, c. 1955-1965
World Record issues were certainly in production by mid-1956. The World Record Treasures records were promoted as a series from which 'members' (membership was free) were required to select a given number of purchases per year. These were sold at lower prices than usual (21s 6d, equivalent to £1.) and distributed in cheap wrappers (originally logo-printed Fablothene, and then card covers with stickers naming the selection). A monthly Club magazine (Record Review) was launched in late 1956, featuring the existing artists and recordings and announcing future selections. The company was first based at 125 Edgware Road, London, with a display centre at 49 Edgware Road. The main UK rival in similar business was the Concert Hall label.
Membership was encouraged by such methods as using sleeve designs contributed by members and as these improved they obtained photographic services of Erich Auerbach. By 1958 there was a membership of at least 150,000. In the Promenade Concerts season of July to September 1958, World Records had a full-page advertisement (offering monthly releases at between 22s 6d and 24s 9d per disc, only one needing to be chosen per year) on the inside front cover of all the individual concert programmes, facing the actual music listing for the evening - a competitive space, placing it on equal footing with Electric Audio Reproducers, EMI Records, Decca Records, Grundig Tape Recorders, Ferguson Radiograms. A full-priced record then cost around 40 shillings (£2).
Key artists at the start were conductors Hans Swarowsky and Muir Mathieson, often with the Sinfonia of London, or Viennese orchestras. The development of new recordings was a special interest, under the celebrated recording engineer Anthony C. Griffith (1915–2005), who became recording manager for WRC in 1958. The Brahms violin concerto (Endre Wolf, violin, Sir Anthony Collins, conductor, WRC TP30) was a 1958 landmark for them, as technical details were published on the sleeve, recorded both in stereo and mono using Ampex equipment and Neumann microphones. Griffith made recordings of Colin Davis, Leon Goossens, Arthur Bliss, Reginald Jacques, Imogen Holst, the Melos Ensemble and Aeolian Quartet. WRC had the distinction of producing Colin Davis' first recording, conducting the Sinfonia of London in performances of Mozart's Symphonies 29 and 39 (TZ 130).
The Mozart oboe concerto (Leon Goossens, oboe; Colin Davis, conductor, T59), issued c.1961, was a big technical and artistic success, the sleeve featuring photographs of studio sessions and playbacks. The Label also produced a strong hand in English music, especially in Vaughan Williams' 9th Symphony and Greensleeves and Thomas Tallis Fantasias, and in music by Elgar, conducted by Adrian Boult and George Weldon, and in works of Sir Arthur Bliss. Important solo records of Sviatoslav Richter, Jorge Bolet and Shura Cherkassky were produced, and classical singers were not neglected.