Sony BMG Masterworks was formed in 2005 as a result of a merger of Sony Masterworks in the 1990s.
The division owned rights to recordings dating from the 20th century and late 19th century, including ones featuring Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, Fritz Reiner, Arturo Toscanini, Artur Rubinstein, Jascha Heifetz, E. Power Biggs, and Plácido Domingo, as well as from more recent performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, and Joshua Bell. It was also responsible for Sony BMG's immense archives of film scores (including scores for such films as Star Wars, The Phantom of the Opera, Memoirs of a Geisha and many others) and theater soundtracks, via its Masterworks Broadway imprint.
While inheriting the Masterworks Jazz, and Masterworks Opera.
After the acquisition of Bertelsmann's shares in the former Sony BMG in 2008, Sony Classical again became a separate division handling international Classical content, based in Berlin.
