Piero Coppola (1888-1971) was an Italian conductor, composer and recording executive whose career was centred largely in France. Born in Milan, he became an important figure in early electrical recording and in the dissemination of modern French and Russian repertory.

As a conductor he made notable recordings for the Gramophone Company, while as a composer he wrote orchestral and stage works including the Interlude dramatique represented in the Pristine catalogue.

Coppola’s music, at least in that orchestral miniature, shows a taste for drive, colour and cinematic tension. His practical experience in the recording world gave him a keen sense of impact and timing.

His name is now most familiar to collectors as a conductor and recording man, but his composing belongs to the same energetic musical culture. Coppola was one of those early twentieth-century figures who seemed to have one hand on the baton and the other on the red recording light.