Deux-Elles is an independent classical record label. We record and market a select catalogue of high-quality music on CD and via the Internet.
We make recordings that are engaging and exciting to listen to and which preserve the real-life ambience, continuity and musicality of the performance. To achieve this we employ minimal-path recording techniques and simple but carefully designed stereophonic microphone configurations. The resulting CDs have sparkling “audiophile” sound quality, preserving the sense of scale, space and texture of the performance.
Deux-Elles aims to produce recordings of distinction by bringing together its technical know-how with the musical talent of its artists and a lot of patience and careful work. We encourage our artists to select their own programme material and to participate actively in the production process.
The Catalogue
Deux-Elles began with a focus on 3 distinct types of music:
Early Music and Baroque
20th Century and New Music
Children’s Music
Our Early Music catalogue includes a wide variety of works – choral, vocal and instrumental. We undertake early music recordings only when we are satisfied that the scholarly study of the music, instruments and performance style of the period is fully accomplished. It is a real joy and privilege for us to work with some of the top artists in the UK at present and to marvel at their outstanding abilities – in musical technique, performance and academic scholarship. Of course, recording early music is more complicated and expensive than other genres because, for example, extra session time has to be allowed for tuning and re-tuning. As a label, however, we believe that many early music works reach sublime heights of musical artistry and the extra effort is certainly worth it – for us and for our customers.
The 20th Century and New Music section of our catalogue is growing to contain a wealth of fine recordings. The diversity of styles and forms in music developed over the last 100 years owes much to the diverse influences upon artists working at different periods; influences as diverse as “the swinging sixties” and WW1. As a consequence, composers have presented their audiences with many challenging as well as beautiful works. We are pleased that our 20th Century catalogue can both challenge the listener and also reward them with the beauty of the music. Deux-Elles is currently developing links with some of the most respected musicians working in this field so as to develop our 20th Century and New Music catalogue substantially over the coming months.
Deux-Elles is particularly aiming to introduce recordings with a much greater diversity of style and scale than is usually found on classical CDs. Often such variation is an intrinsic part of the music itself. In other cases it can be achieved by careful design of programme and running order, as for a concert or recital.
Recording Technology
A distinctive feature of our recordings is that they are aimed to satisfy not only general classical music buyers but also those people seeking high quality “audiophile” recordings. We use different and more direct recording techniques to many companies in terms of the microphone settings, the equipment employed, the digital signal processing applied and the balance of the compromises in the recording process. The aim throughout is the faithful recording of the performance so as to enable the listener to reproduce as realistically as possible the full experience of the music.