10th June 1985

Contract with Nippon Columbia

On 10 June 1985, Supraphon and Nippon Columbia concluded a contract on co-production of digital recordings. Previously, in 1984, Supraphon had received a Gold Disc of Nippon Columbia for its albums of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 and Smetana’s My Country. In 1985, the Japanese company provided to Supraphon its recording equipment, including the video recorder SONY U-Matic, which, however, recorded the digital audio signal. The collaboration resulted in a number of co-production projects – albums of classical music, mainly made by the Czech Philharmonic. Initially, the digital recordings were released on analogue discs and audio cassettes, yet in the middle of the 1980s a new system was placed on to the market, which markedly transformed the music industry: the compact digital disc, CD, which made digital recordings available to the general public. In May 1987, Supraphon released its first CD, containing Bedřich Smetana’s My Country, yet a year previously it had produced CDs under licence from Nippon Columbia, including one with Leoš Janáček’s Gla­golitic Mass.