Shortly after the introduction of the “long-play” record, orLP, by Columbia Records in 1948, Charles Rosen made his first recordings fortwo of the numerous small labels that proliferated during this period: EMS(for Elaine Music Shop) and REB (for Robert E. Blake) Editions. EMS wasfounded by Jack Skurnick, a co-owner of the Elaine Music Shop, located at 9East 44 Street in New York City: the shop was named after the co-owner HarryLew’s wife, Elaine. Nothing if not ambitious, Skurnick undertook aseries of recordings of early music under the general title Anthology ofTwelfth- to Seventeenth-Century Music with the Brussels-based ensemble ProCantione Antiqua under the leadership of Stafford Cape; but the single mostcelebrated release on the EMS label was The Complete Works of EdgardVarèse, volume 1, which was recorded under thecomposer’s supervision and made famous long after the fact whenrock’n’roll musician (and closet composer of serious music)Frank Zappa wrote about it in Stereo Review in 1971. Aforthcoming second volume never materialized because of Skurnick’sdeath on September 6, 1952. Rosen made his first recording for EMS Recordsin the summer of 1950 while still a graduate student at PrincetonUniversity. Robert E. Blake was the engineer for at least some of therecordings on the EMS label, including Rosen’s, and the founder ofhis own label, REB Editions.

In 1960, Rosen made his first recording for Epic Records, and through theearly 1970s, his recordings appeared on Epic and various other labels ownedby CBS Records. Among the more ambitious undertakings from this period wererecordings of the last keyboard works of Bach and a recording of the lastsix Beethoven sonatas, a perennial bestseller that remained in the Columbiacatalogue until the demise of the LP. During this period Rosen was enlistedto participate in the first recording of Stravinsky’sMovements for Piano and Orchestra with the composerconducting. Boulez invited Rosen to record his complete piano music, ofwhich the first sonata and the extant movements of the third were recorded.Boulez also invited him to participate in a complete recording of the musicof Anton Webern. Most of Rosen’s CBS recordings were produced by JaneFriedmann or Thomas Z. Shepard. A number of them have been reissued oncompact disc.