G Ricordi & Co (London) Ltd started life in 1878 as the British branch of Casa Ricordi, and at that time owned the rights to the Italian catalogue in the UK and other countries in the former British Empire.
During the Second World War Ricordi London was able to ensure that such perennial favourites such as the Verdi Requiem and the Vivaldi Gloria, as reconstructed by Alberto Casella, remained in circulation in western Europe. From the 1950s onwards Ricordi London established a formidable reputation as a publisher of choral, instrumental and educational publications, many of which remain in our sales catalogue today.
In 1994 the Ricordi group of companies (which included companies in Munich and Paris as well as London and Milan) was acquired by BMG Music Publishing, which, at the millennium, added the famous French publishing houses Durand, Salabert and Eschig to the group. In 2007 the BMG Music Publishing division was, in turn, acquired by Universal Music Publishing Group.
