Von Matacic's Russian album revisited
Ten years ago, I wrote a post sharing my thoughts on Lovro von Matacic's excellent album of Russian orchestral music ( Columbia SAX 2327 ). To this day, this continues to be one of my all-time favorite records of this repertoire. A blue/silver pressing in very good or better condition will still cost you somewhere between $90 and $150 plus shipping. A few readers (AndyW, Meles, and Kostaszags) had positive things to say about the UK HMV Concert Classics reissue (SXLP 30070). One reader, jolly oink, mentioned a budget reissue from the US label Quintessence. Quintessence Records? I'll have to admit - I was pretty ignorant about this record label. According to Wikipedia -- yes, Wikipedia has an entry for this record label -- Quintessence was formed by Pickwick International in 1976 as a budget label devoted to licensed reissues of historical classical recordings. Several of their records were originally content from Reader's Digest boxed sets (produced by Decca Records for R