Founded in 2004 in order to release the recordings made during the Bach Cantata pilgrimage that took place in the year 2000. Following its launch in 2005, Soli Deo Gloria has established itself as one of the leading independent record labels. In October 2005 its very first release, SDG101, won Record of the Year at the Gramophone Awards, and all subsequent releases have won international acclaim for the performances by The Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.
In the same year, at the behest of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, SDG released the first recording of a newly discovered piece by JS Bach, ‘Alles mit Gott’ and in 2006 the label made headlines with a CD of two Mozart symphonies, recorded live during a concert at London’s Cadogan Hall and released at the end of the evening.
The label has committed to releasing 51 CDs, each corresponding to one of the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage's concerts.
Since its creation, the label has also published parallel endeavours of Gardiner and his forces, such as his Pilgrimage to Santiago CD, recorded after a 2004 tour following the Camino de Santiago.
Autumn 2007 saw the first recordings with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Salle Pleyel in Paris during the Brahms and his Antecedents [1] concert cycle. The first release in this new series will be in September 2008 and will include Brahms’ Symphony Number 1 along with music by Mendelssohn.
According to its website, the name Soli Deo Gloria is drawn from the initials that Johann Sebastian Bach appended at the end of each of his Cantatas, dedicating them to the "glory of God alone". [2]