Russian CD label?

[Dave2002]

Following the recent BAL on Prokofiev's 5th I remembered that there was a CD label which had recordings by Russian orchestras and conductors - and they were often available cheaply. I think it was called something like Russian Revelation, but I can't find any traces of this via internet searches. Of course doing a search is very likely to discover historical details of Russian Revolutions. The CDs had white covers with some wording in black boxes or in black lettering IIRC.

Other CDs of recordings from Russia were under Melodiya or Olympus labels. I'm sure eventually I'll remember or come across one of my CDs which will show the label of the recording/distribution company - but I wondered if anyone here remembers that label. I was looking to see if the Simonov recording which was mentioned in the Bal might have been released on that label at one time, though I doubt that the sound quality would be any better than the Presto download.

[cloughie]

Following the recent BAL on Prokofiev's 5th I remembered that there was a CD label which had recordings by Russian orchestras and conductors - and they were often available cheaply. I think it was called something like Russian Revelation, but I can't find any traces of this via internet searches. Of course doing a search is very likely to discover historical details of Russian Revolutions. The CDs had white covers with some wording in black boxes or in black lettering IIRC.

Other CDs of recordings from Russia were under Melodiya or Olympus labels. I'm sure eventually I'll remember or come across one of my CDs which will show the label of the recording/distribution company - but I wondered if anyone here remembers that label. I was looking to see if the Simonov recording which was mentioned in the Bal might have been released on that label at one time, though I doubt that the sound quality would be any better than the Presto download.

https://www.discogs.com/label/668900-The-Classical-Russia-Revelation

https://rateyourmusic.com/label/the_classical_russia_revelation/

Therevwas also this label

https://www.discogs.com/label/484446-Leningrad-Masters

[Bryn]

Following the recent BAL on Prokofiev's 5th I remembered that there was a CD label which had recordings by Russian orchestras and conductors - and they were often available cheaply. I think it was called something like Russian Revelation, but I can't find any traces of this via internet searches. Of course doing a search is very likely to discover historical details of Russian Revolutions. The CDs had white covers with some wording in black boxes or in black lettering IIRC.

Other CDs of recordings from Russia were under Melodiya or Olympus labels. I'm sure eventually I'll remember or come across one of my CDs which will show the label of the recording/distribution company - but I wondered if anyone here remembers that label. I was looking to see if the Simonov recording which was mentioned in the Bal might have been released on that label at one time, though I doubt that the sound quality would be any better than the Presto download.

"The Works" had many of them as remainder items at £1 each, a decade or so ago. The full title of the label was "The Classical Russia Revalation", though "The Classical" was in rather small print at the top of "RUSSIAN". Some unexpected items such as David Oistrakh conducting Mahler's 4th. They were put out by Revelation Records Ltd, a division of Telstar Records PLC.

[visualnickmos]

I certainly remember that label. I have a few of the recordings, which are generally very good - varying technical / sound quality. They do crop up from time to time on the "usual places" but quite often they do not appeal; usually on seeing the date of recording being the deal-breaker, for me, at least.

[Dave2002]

"The Works" had many of them as remainder items at £1 each, a decade or so ago. The full title of the label was "The Classical Russia Revalation", though "The Classical" was in rather small print at the top of "RUSSIAN". Some unexpected items such as David Oistrakh conducting Mahler's 4th. They were put out by Revelation Records Ltd, a division of Telstar Records PLC.

Thanks - my memory was clearly not completely shot - as I do remember the black boxes with the white lettering. I had forgotten the gold/brown lettering for the word "Russia".

I'm fairly sure I bought some in France in a hypermarket.

Is there a catalogue - or was there - for that label? I feel sure that there were some quite unusual items in the listings - or unusual performances anyway.

[cloughie]

Thanks - my memory was clearly not completely shot - as I do remember the black boxes with the white lettering. I had forgotten the gold/brown lettering for the word "Russia".

I'm fairly sure I bought some in France in a hypermarket.

Is there a catalogue - or was there - for that label? I feel sure that there were some quite unusual items in the listings - or unusual performances anyway.

Have you checked my links on #2?

[Bryn]

Have you checked my links on #2?

I certainly did. It's how I found the image of the Mahler insert. Thanks for posting it.

[gradus]

Were these the from the huge stash of off-air and concert classical recordings that was discovered and released to the West after the Soviet regime toppled?

[Petrushka]

I bought one or two of those Russian Revelation discs including a Shostakovich 8 conducted by Alexander Gauk.

The whole Russian recordings thing is a terrible mess with some really good discs (first performance of DSCH 14, second performance of DSCH 13, an alleged first performance DSCH 11 with the world's noisiest audience) popping up on the Russian Disc label, while others appeared on Olympia and Leningrad Masters. It was all pretty chaotic and the labels were short-lived but definitely worth investigating even if you suspected possible doubts about authenticity, especially regarding Mravinsky. Some Russian recordings are appearing on a label called Northern Flowers nowadays, while Svetlanov stuff has appeared on Scribendum.

The Melodiya label is itself a bit chaotic with items appearing/disappearing in seemingly random fashion. I picked up a load of Melodiya LPs from Collet's bookshop in Charing Cross Road back in the day but few have ever appeared on CD. The likes of Rozhdestvensky and Svetlanov, amongst internationally famous conductors, are ill-served by this chaos.

I'd like to enter a plea for the entire Melodiya catalogue to be made available again on CD/download and some order to be restored with the massive broadcasting archive that must exist.

[Dave2002]

Have you checked my links on #2?

I looked at some of the links - and indeed I found by following a few that I was presented with interesting puzzles about reading Russian - such as here -

https://www.discogs.com/artist/343871-Leningrad-Philharmonic-Orchestra

Not too difficult once you get into it - seeing Beethoven and Mozart written in Cyrillic script. Kurt Sanderling threw me, though.

I didn't spot that a significant part of the catalogue was given in the links - so thanks for those. I thought that perhaps Bryn actually had the Mahler 4 conducted by Oistrakh and had uploaded a photo.

[cloughie]

I looked at some of the links - and indeed I found by following a few that I was presented with interesting puzzles about reading Russian - such as here -

https://www.discogs.com/artist/343871-Leningrad-Philharmonic-Orchestra

Not too difficult once you get into it - seeing Beethoven and Mozart written in Cyrillic script. Kurt Sanderling threw me, though.

I didn't spot that a significant part of the catalogue was given in the links - so thanks for those. I thought that perhaps Bryn actually had the Mahler 4 conducted by Oistrakh and had uploaded a photo.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/leningrad-masters-mn0000260653

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/russian-revelation-mn0000223133

[Aureliano]

There was a Prokofiev 5 on this Russian Revelation label, not mentioned in the Discogs links. This was a recording conducted by Rozhdestvensky and coupled with the suite from Semyon Kotko.

There was also another Prokofiev disc not mentioned of the ballet On The Dneiper coupled with The Year 1941 (both Rozhdestvensky) and a few pieces from R&J (Temirkanov).

Talking of oddities on this label, I seem to remember for this label there was also a recording or Rozhdestvensky conducting Britten's Spring Symphony in Russian which might make interesting listening.

[Dave2002]

There was a Prokofiev 5 on this Russian Revelation label, not mentioned in the Discogs links. This was a recording conducted by Rozhdestvensky and coupled with the suite from Semyon Kotko.

There was also another Prokofiev disc not mentioned of the ballet On The Dneiper coupled with The Year 1941 (both Rozhdestvensky) and a few pieces from R&J (Temirkanov).

Talking of oddities on this label, I seem to remember for this label there was also a recording or Rozhdestvensky conducting Britten's Spring Symphony in Russian which might make interesting listening.

I suspected as much - though not sure if I have the disc somewhere.