CBS Masterworks

CBS Masterworks was an American record label founded in 1927 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1948, it issued the first commercially successful long-playing 12" record. Over the next decades its artists included Isaac Stern, Pablo Casals, Glenn Gould, Eugene Ormandy, Vangelis, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams and Liona Boyd. Columbia Records used the Masterworks brand name not only for classical and Broadway records, but also for spoken-word albums. Parent CBS also featured the Masterworks name on its consumer electronics equipment.

In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records, but in 1990, after CBS Records was acquired by Sony, it was renamed Sony Classical Records; its logo echoes the "Magic Notes" logo that was Columbia's emblem until 1954. During the 1990s, the label attracted controversy as it emphasized crossover music over mainstream classical releases, failing to make available much of its archive of great recordings.