col-legno

The year 1982 marks col legno's hour of birth: Wolfgang Rihm and Heinz Winbeck persuaded Wulf Weinmann to found a music label dedicated solely to new and very new classical music. In 1985 the first album actually came off the presses, a digital recording of Hummel's opera Blaubart; a year later, the first Lachenmann recording was released (Gran Torso & Salut für Caudwell). col legno soon became a synonym for first recordings on CD (”New music has a name”) of works of the most important contemporary composers. But over the years the industry changed, and with it the challenges a music label has to cope with: by 2005 the end seemed inevitable – and Christian Köck arrived on the scene.