Russian

Recorded in St. Petersburg, Moscow and abroad, 1890s–1930s

These sides span the years 1901 to 1935, drawn from a vault tagged Russian. Some are pre-1923, the majority fall in the 1923–46 gray band, and a few remain unclassified. Orchestra and song dominate the titles; polkas, a march, and a dance appear among them.

Sofia Alexandrovna Redzhi carries ten of the published sides, all from 1930: Days After Days Roll By, Homeless, Heart in Rags, Misha, Troshka, Yellow Gloves, Gypsy Life, 400 Pageboys, For Guitar Fingerpicking, and 1924 Berlin. Paul O'Montis is heard on four, among them Stenka Razin and Princess, Bublichki, Ukhar the Merchant, and Kazbek.

Balalaika groups run through the set. Scriabin's Balalaika Orchestra gives the Song of the Volga boatmen and Down the Mother Volga in 1929; Andreieff's Balalaika Orch. is present in 1911, and Russian balalaika ensembles offer South Russian folk songs from 1920. Anastasia Dmitrievna Vyaltseva sings Remember in 1905; Theodore Chaliapine is credited with Night, and Fedor Chaliapin with sides from 1901 and 1902.

Ukrainian voices stand beside the Russian ones—Solomiya Amvrosiivna Krushelnytska on two 1928 sides, the Lira Ukrainian Choir, and the Ukrainian National Quartet. Early military cuts include the Volhynian Life Guards Regiment in 1909 and a Military Orchestra's Russian March in 1908; later come the Dajos Béla Orchestra's two parts of Around the Volga and Abe Schwartz's Hussar and Moscow polkas in 1935.