March, 2014: Symphony No. 8 / Rozhdestvensky / USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra

Click to enlarge This is our third and last installment in the series of early Rozdestvensky Bruckner recordings. Rozhdestvensky made a very complete cycle of Bruckner symphonies in association with Melodiya. Those recordings have been issued in many forms and some can now be downloaded from Internet download sites at a very modest cost. However, getting the complete cycle has always been difficult - going back to the original LPs, to the RCA Japan release and then a short lived release on Venezia. As with the recording offered here, the cycle was recorded with the USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra. The Symphony No. 8 used in the Melodiya cycle was recorded in 1985, but this recording, most likely recorded for a radio broadcast, was performed on April 8, 1984. It has only shown up on two labels - Russian Revelation out of the UK and Yedang Classics out of Korea. Both are out-of-print.