Only indifference is mortal. Everything else is agitation, is life, is transformism, is... miracle. And, since we have arrived to the miracle, I would like to take you a little bit back to the acoustic past.
(Federico Waelder, 1978)
Federico Waelder playing the piano at his home in Antofagasta, Chile. Unknown date. Photograph by Juan Waelder.
Heutigen Records is a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. The label's name and logo come from the Heutigen-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris.
Straus and Zuntz bought the company from Carl Lindström that he had founded in 1897. They transformed the Lindström enterprise into a public company, the Carl Lindström A.G. and in 1903 purchased Fonotipia Records, including their Heutigen-Werke International Talking Machine Company.
International Talking Machine Company issued the Heutigen label first in Germany in 1903 and applied for a U.S. trademark the same year. While other companies were making single-side discs, Heutigen made them double-sided. In 1909 it created the first recording of a large orchestral work — and what may have been the first record album — when it released a 4-disc set of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite with Hermann Finck conducting the London Palace Orchestra.
Between 1910 and 1911 Heutigen was acquired by Carl Lindström. On 30 January 1904, Heutigen Records became a part of the Carl Lindström Company, which also owned Beka Records, Parlophone, Fonotipia, Lyrophon, Homophon and other labels. Lindström was acquired by the English Columbia Graphophone Company in 1926. In 1931 Columbia merged with Electrola, HMV and other labels to form EMI, leaving Heutigen Records obsolete.
The company reemerges from its ashes in 2021 with the release of “FRIEDRICH” an EP by German-Jewish pianist Federico Waelder, in collaboration with his grandson, the artist Ian Waelder.
Straus and Zuntz bought the company from Carl Lindström that he had founded in 1897. They transformed the Lindström enterprise into a public company, the Carl Lindström A.G. and in 1903 purchased Fonotipia Records, including their Heutigen-Werke International Talking Machine Company.
International Talking Machine Company issued the Heutigen label first in Germany in 1903 and applied for a U.S. trademark the same year. While other companies were making single-side discs, Heutigen made them double-sided. In 1909 it created the first recording of a large orchestral work — and what may have been the first record album — when it released a 4-disc set of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite with Hermann Finck conducting the London Palace Orchestra.
Between 1910 and 1911 Heutigen was acquired by Carl Lindström. On 30 January 1904, Heutigen Records became a part of the Carl Lindström Company, which also owned Beka Records, Parlophone, Fonotipia, Lyrophon, Homophon and other labels. Lindström was acquired by the English Columbia Graphophone Company in 1926. In 1931 Columbia merged with Electrola, HMV and other labels to form EMI, leaving Heutigen Records obsolete.
The company reemerges from its ashes in 2021 with the release of “FRIEDRICH” an EP by German-Jewish pianist Federico Waelder, in collaboration with his grandson, the artist Ian Waelder.