Naxos founder Klaus Heymann on the label's history - and what comes next

At nearly 85 Klaus Heymann has just signed a new five year contract as the head of Naxos, once the enfant terrible of the record industry but now an indispensable part of the global classical music infrastructure - not just as its own label but as the distributor for a wide array of independent ones. Klaus Heymann is doing what he has always done, challenging the assumptions of the big European and American conglomerates. He did so when they were EMI, Phillips, CBS and RCA. He does so now they are Universal, Sony and Warner.

The path to becoming such a major disruptive force was never a plan, nor even particularly intentional. When he was young he wanted most of all to be a Professor of linguistics. 1936 was not the best moment to be born in Germany and times were still difficult by the time he went to study at the University of Frankfurt in the mid 1950s. He supported himself as a student by operating as a tennis coach (these days tennis has given way to golf). For post-graduate work he went to Lisbon to specialise in Portuguese and then was persuaded to move on to King's College London. 'At that time it was the only Portuguese course in the UK,' he says, 'and even then there were only three students. The whole college had a quota of no more than six Germans per year and that was full, so they slipped me in as Portuguese because I'd been in Lisbon.' It's hard to imagine KCL being as fussy now about taking European students.

Heymann moved on to further studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and then returned to Frankfurt but instead of joining academia, he began working in advertising sales for an American journal called Overseas Weekly, an anti-establishment liberal tabloid aimed at US servicemen in Europe. When the paper opened an Asian edition as the Vietnam War gathered pace in the late 1960s, Heymann was moved to Hong Kong, where it was printed. As well as working for the paper Heymann expanded his interests as the war dragged on by selling cameras, watches and audio equipment to the soldiers. The loudspeaker firm Bose and the tape recorder company, Revox, along with Studer - renowned at the professional end of the business - made him their Hong Kong distributor at a time when the British colony was the business heart of Asia. He became a concert promoter too, started distributing records from the Eastern European state labels like Suprophon and Hungaroton that were then rarities in Western-dominated stores, and joined the board of the fledgling Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, easing its path into a fully professional group in 1974.

One of the soloists who came to play with it was the Japanese violinist, Takako Nishizaki, eight years younger than Heymann. Ten years earlier, at the age of 20, she had been runner-up to Itzhak Perlman in the Leventritt Competition while studying at Julliard. When she and Heymann became engaged, Heymann says, 'I had to promise her father that if she moved to Hong Kong to marry me, I had to make sure she would keep practising.' Her father had been the co-founder of the Suzuki teaching method and she had been its first prodigy.

'There only so many concerts she could give with the orchestra so the only way to make sure of that was to start recording. She started with Telefunken and then in 1978 I formed HK records to make three LPs of Chinese classical music, which sold incredibly well. The HKPO wanted to record Western classical music, of course, showing how it could be done in Asia but I wanted to do the reverse, bring rare Eastern music to the West, so I formed the Marco Polo label to do it; Marco Polo on his return journey.'

Soon the Eastern European orchestras that he had distributed realised Heymann might be an answer to their problems of visibility outside the Soviet sphere of influence. 'Naxos really started in Bratislava, with the Slovak Philharmonic,' he says. 'I paid decent fees in Western currencies,' two things which were very hard to find in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s. 'When the CD market began to develop, I wanted to compete and working with them meant I could sell at the same price as an LP, whereas CDs normally cost two or three times more. My aim was to sell for what in most countries was the smallest paper denomination of currency.'

His enterprise, doing to companies like EMI what EasyJet did a few years later to big airlines, caused howls from the classical establishment and at first Naxos recordings and artists were berated as cut price, therefore sub-standard. 'Actually, the rudeness did us a big favour. None of the record shops would put us in their ordinary racks so we started putting in our own display stands, not only into traditional outlets but other stores as well. We became instantly easy to identify. Then nobody would distribute us so we had to be a distributor as well but that was no problem because I had being doing that for years. Now we are the backbone of the independent business for BIS, Chandos etc.'

It is not quite true that Heymann set out to include every piece of classical music in the Naxos catalogue. 'Originally we aimed to make the standard repertoire available on CD at a low price. I went through the Gramophone catalogue and picked everything that had been recorded at least three time but as we went on we broadened out away from the core. Now the Naxos catalogue is a 900 page book and, if you include all the labels - Vox, Capriccio etc. - we do have just about everything; but we still look out for things that are not completely obscure.'

He was an early proponent of digital distribution, especially downloads, though he still likes to make recordings physically available. 'Downloading didn't really change anything. Streaming has really affected the business,' he admits. 'Before, people had to buy and be curious. Now they don't listen to an album, they just click on a track. For audio we are lucky to get somewhere between 1500 and 3000 sales so we are moving much more into video where we find we get nearer 20,000. But nothing recoups the investment in new recording any more. The majors are doing no better. Streaming fees mean that we are only getting four cents per listen if people take the whole thing. The quantity of streaming is what has rescued the industry, so we are making much more money - last year was our best ever financially - but we make new recordings now for our image and because we want to; and our duty to the artists, to keep them happy.'

There is no sign of Klaus Heymann being less involved because he is in his 80s. He now has two hundred employees around the world, with his nephew running operations in Japan. He still insists on signing off on every recording and new initiative. He rises early to escape the Hong Kong heat and works from 7am till 9pm, taking a break for a nap in the afternoon and tea with Takako.