Borodin String Quartets Nos 1 & 2 on Chandos Historical (CHAN 9965) When and where was this rather good recording made? Chandos offers no information in the insert or on it's quirky site, and a Google search resulted in few and contradictory results. One identifies it as the 1962 London recording at Decca Studios, another as just 'Moscow', and yet another as Moscow, 1979. This is not likely, as the recording is by the 'original members' and Dubinsky came West in 1976. Chandos identifies it as 'Public Domain' on the disc artwork, so presumably it is an early sixties recording. Any thoughts or hard information, anyone?

Having Decca on my CV, I followed a search of "rare classical records" and came up with:
"The Borodin Quartet is represented worldwide by Van Walsum Management. Please contact Peter Railton (email prailton@vanwalsum.com, tel +44 (0)20 7902 0541) for more information. For all press and publicity enquiries please contact Valerie Barber (email info@vbpr.co.uk, tel +44 (0)20 7586 8560)."
Also of interest unless you have not already tracked them down are:
Virgin 7907461; Melodiya Y33827; Decca SXL 6036; Onyx 4002 (on whose website you can download tracks and albums onto an mp3 if, unlike me, you're savvy enough.)
You may find it interesting to follow the "rare classical records" trail.
Good luck.

Thank you, Patricia, I may e-mail the management firm, if all else fails. You know how these agents are; if there's no money involved, they're not inclined to take any trouble. I suppose there is some legal reason why Chandos is reticent about the origins of the recording.

Dr. Phibes, I have this excellent recording also. There is not a scrap of information in it as to venue or recording date, but it must have been 1974 or earlier, as their leader Rostislav Dubinsky emigrated that year. His informative book "Stormy Applause" unfortunately also does not give recording dates.

Dear Dr. Phipes,
The excellent Melodiya recording of the two quartets by the Borodin Quartet with Dubinsky (Melodiya MEL CD 10 00942)
String Quartet Nos. 1 & 2 has as recording dates "1958" & "1965". Haven't got a clue whether this is the same recording as the "historical" Chandos recording you mentioned above; if it is, these are the recordings dates given here. Not very exact, but it's at least something close to resembling a 'result'. Hope this is helpful to you.

Many thanks to both of my distinguished friends, Piso Mojado (why a wet floor?) and Hamersveld. 1974? Ah, I thought it was 1976. 'Stormy Applause' is chock full of juicy tidbits, but not (as you note) the recording dates, alas. The Melodiya LP was superb (I still have my copy, now in honourable retirement), but I'm not quite certain if this recording and the Chandos are the same. The quartet performed these pieces quite often, I believe. Once again, many thanks!

Dr. Phibes, a pleasure. I think the Chandos and Melodiya recordings are the same. The BSQ didn't repeat many, or any, of their records until Mikhael Koppelman took over as leader from Dubinsky. Unfortunately Rostislav Dubinsky is no longer alive. to query. I talked to him once about his book after a concert here of the Borodin Trio with his wife and the cellist T. Piso Mojado is an old and now, I fear, rather stale joke in reaction to posters styling themselves Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf and the like, but it has served me well. In my mind's eye, Piso Mojado is a dashing flamenco guitarist with swarthy skin, flashing eyes, and curly, curly hair. The reality, alas, is somewhat other.

The Borodin Quartet, at least in its first two or three formulations, is one of the finest I've heard, and I try to have all their things as long as Dubinsky and Koppelman were leaders. Their Op. 59/1 Razumovsky Nr. 1 on Virgin is a example, the Molto Largo e Mesto.

Well, then we must agree that the tapes for the Melodiya recording of the late fifties-early sixties were polished by Chandos and issued as CHAN 9965. This fits in with the 'Public Domain' label, to be sure. Excellent thumbnail sketch of the renowned guitarist Piso Mojado - one of the great flamenco interpreters, and certainly a very curly-haired gentleman. I have always favoured Marco Spada, myself. If one must be a brigand, a nineteenth-century Italian brigand is certainly the one to be, what? Returning to Borodin and his first (A) quartet, if I could generate some background information on the 'Russian Quartet' that premiered the work in St Petersburg in 1880, I should be a happy brigand.

D'accord as to Marco Spada and brigands, Dr. Phibes. Isn't there a Spada in "Monte Cristo"? But what would we do without Google, from whom I learn that the Quartet of the Russian Musical Society premiered Borodin's first quartet in 1880, when I was quite small. In a cursory search I did not find much more. Perhaps Rimski-Korsakoff's biography has more. I've been meaning to read it. It seems a folk tune, "The Song of the Sparrow Hills", gave Borodin the melody for his Andante, and he used it again in "Prince Igor". I'm pretty sure Rachmaninoff also quotes it in an early piano piece.

When I spoke to Rostislov Dubinsky about "Stormy Applause" he was clearly pleased, and volunteered that he might write something more, but I know of nothing.

Thank you, the connection with the Russian Musical Society makes it clear. They held regular performances beginning in 1871. I must look through Rimsky-Korsakov's biography in the next few days, I believe I do have a PDF copy. I don't think Dubinsky wrote anything else after the 1989 book, but I'll have a look through the Indiana University's catalogue