“Eva Coutaz, who in more than four decades at the highly respected record label Harmonia Mundi shaped musicians’ careers, rehabilitated forgotten composers and expanded the tastes of record collectors, died on Jan. 26 in Arles, France,” writes Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in Thursday’s (2/4) New York Times. “She was 77…. Ms. Coutaz joined Harmonia Mundi in 1972 at the invitation of its founder, Bernard Coutaz, whom she would go on to marry…. Ms. Coutaz nurtured long-term relationships with … the countertenor Alfred Deller and the performer-conductors René Jacobs, William Christie and Philippe Herreweghe. Later she brought in … the violinist Isabelle Faust, the pianist Alexandre Tharaud and the baritone Matthias Goerne. She built a catalog of more than 800 recordings as head of production starting in 1975. On the death of her husband in 2010 she became chief executive of the company and remained in that post until 2015, when she sold the label…. At its most prolific, Harmonia Mundi released more than 50 new recordings a year…. In 2015, she approved the sale of Harmonia Mundi’s catalog to PIAS, a Belgian group of independent labels.”
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