Our History

●

The name Hungaroton virtually equals Hungarian record production. As one of Europe's most reputable labels, our catalogue features the play, voice and works of nearly every important artist of the past 70 years. Our aim is to record the play of the next generation of great Hungarian artists who have already achieved international fame despite their young age. From time to time however, we deem it important to introduce our legendary recordings and treasures to newer generations of music listeners through new releases and modern platforms.

Hungarian Record Productions (MHV), the predecessor of Hungaroton, was founded in 1951 by the Hungarian state. It followed private-owned publishers previously owned by Hungarian, later by international companies, as a monopoly. From that time on almost only socialist countries brands (first of all Melodia, Supraphon and Eterna) meant competition for the Hungarian company for almost four decades long in Hungary. As a result of MHV’s market position the whole Hungarian classical and pop music, even the best actors made their records at MHV. The archive counted a valuable set of ten thousand records.

Export started to grow stronger from the mid-60s, the brand name Qualiton was changed to Hungaroton. Qualiton remained the brand name for Hungarian music, Gipsy music and operetta. Later from the 1970s in terms of some internal commercialization individual pop music brands (Pepita, Bravó, Krém) were set up within the company. The 1970s and 1980s meant the Golden Age. The most popular pop singers and pop groups easily reached the then awarded Gold Record after one hundred thousand records were sold. Classical records were sold all over the world in large numbers thanks to their excellent art and technical qualities and their relatively low price.

Liberalization of the national market in 1988 put a halt to this. Western pop music records and talents of classical music that used to be almost inaccessible became available overnight, so following long arrangements Hungaroton were privatized in 1995.

Since then, Hungaroton’s classical music artist team includes names of the past along with today’s illustrious and future’s promising talents, i.e. pianists: Annie Fischer, Tamás Vásáry, Péter Frankl, Zoltán Kocsis, Dezső Ránki, András Schiff, József Balog, Gábor Farkas, Zoltán Fejérvári and Dénes Várjon; conductors: János Ferencsik, Tamás Vásáry, Iván Fischer, János Kovács, Zoltán Kocsis, György Vashegyi; violinists: Kristóf Baráti, Barnabás Kelemen, Katalin Kokas, Vilmos Szabadi, Antal Szalai; cellists: Miklós Perényi, Ditta Rohmann, István Várdai, Ildikó Szabó and Péter Szabó; string-quartets: Tátrai, Bartók, Takács and Auer Quartets; chamber orchestras Liszt Ferenc, Erkel, Erdődy and Anima Musicae.

Hungaroton excels in world premiere publications and has a strong early music profile sealed with such names as Malcolm Bilson, Miklós Spányi, Anikó Horváth, Anneke Boeke, Benedek Csalog, Ildikó Kertész, Balázs Máté, Pál Németh, Róbert Mandel and several Hungarian and foreign colleagues. World famous Amadinda Percussion Group, a Cantemus and Pro Musica Girls’Choirs, Capella Savaria, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir make their records at Hungaroton.

In pop music life’s work of everlasting Hungarian stars is concentrated at Hungaroton as follows Zsuzsa Koncz, György Korda, Péter Máté, Pál Szécsi, Bikini, Illés, Omega, Neoton Família, Benkó Dixieland Band. In the genre of cabaret and pop music Géza Hofi represents the flagship. Children’s favourite is Judit Halász either she sings, tells a story or guides them through the world of operas. When talking about folk music Márta Sebestyén and Kati Szvorák singers and Jánosi, Muzsikás and Vujicsics Group have to be highlighted. The best of the bests are queued here in the genre of Hungarian song, Gipsy music as well, e.g. Lakatos, Sánta and Kállai Kiss dynasties, the Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra, Rajkó Band (Gipsy Orchestra) and dulcimer players such as Oszkár Ökrös, Apollónia Kovács, Margit Bangó, Károly Solti and singing Ferenc Bessenyei who leads us to actors of literature discs: Róbert Alföldi, András Kern, Zoltán Latinovits, Pál Mácsai, László Mensáros, Piroska Molnár, Imre Sinkovits, Éva Ruttkay, Klári Tolnay and relics quarding own poetry recitals of poets.

Our classical music releases on this label regularly win prizes in international competitions. In addition to awards from the magazines Diapason, Goldberg, Le Monde de la Musique, Pizzicato and others, it is worth mentioning the three MIDEM prizes for the Dohnányi violin concertos (1999), the complete Bartók series (2002) and the SACD released as the first of the Bartók New Series (The Wooden Prince, Kossuth - symphonic poem), and the Classical Internet Awards (2004) award for a Bartók SACD conducted by Zoltán Kocsis. The part of the Bartók New Series containing the violin sonatas, played by Barnabás Kelemen and Zoltán Kocsis, won the prize “CD of the year” in the chamber music category in the Gramophone Awards 2013 competition.

The release of all Beethoven's piano concertos played by Dénes Várjon with the Concerto Budapest conducted by András Keller won Gramophone magazine's “Best Hungarian classical music disc of the year” in 2016, and the album Bartók the Pianist released for the 135th anniversary of Bartók's birth was chosen as "Best archive recording of the year" in the same competition. The label has been recurrently nominated for various categories in the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA), the leading independent CD prizes in the world. In 2017 Bartók the Pianist was selected as one of the top three best recordings (in the “Historical” category), as was flautist Gergely Ittzés's seven-CD series of The Great Book of Flute Sonatas in 2019 (in the “Best Collection” category).