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Over 1000 Records available. If you plan to buy several records: Click the "ADD TO CART" button. Once you have selected all the records you want, go to Cart and check out. COMBINED SHIPPING will be applied automatically. If shipping seems high and for INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: In Cart click REQUEST TOTAL, and I will send you an invoice. Lower priced options available for International Shipping.

A series of great  Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Yugo-Slav  Records from early G&Ts to World War II recordings on 78 rpm Victrola Records

Simply one of the greatest singers on record.

Talking about a viscerally arousing voice, NINA KOSHETZ is it. Here in her farewell recordings for the Schirmer Publishing house in 1940. Though these records have a reputation for poor sound quality, it's just the very unusual equalization required for these records (they used a crystal cutter head). Once correctly equalized, they reveal Koshetz's voice in its full beauty

"She sang with "a passionate Russian melancholy" and her voice was compared with a Stradivarius in the hands of a sensitive violinist... Nina Koshetz is a singer of an individual style."

Rachmaninoff*– To The Children, Op. 26, No. 7
Composed By – Rachmaninoff*
Piano – Celius Dougherty
Rachmaninoff*– Christ Is Risen, Op. 26, No. 6
Composed By – Rachmaninoff*
Piano – Celius Dougherty

Please see top of the page for condition

Koshetz’s name will always be bracketed with that of Rachmaninoff. They first met in 1915 and their close relationship led to his accompanying her on tour – the only singer he ever accompanied it would seem. After their parting they both found their ways to America though they never spoke again; a few letters were all that passed between them. 

After her career had effectively ended she contracted to record a 78 album of Rachmaninoff songs for Schirmer. One listens to a most important body of discs recorded by a singer whose intimate relationship with composer cannot fail to be of the highest significance. Her singing is rhythmically free and the gradual deepening of the voice adds another layer of melancholy to it. It’s inevitable that it should sometimes come across as hard and unsatisfying, a corollary of the recording and also maybe rusty usage. Her voice does sound worn in To the Children but in compensation it’s also highly expressive. Lilacs is subject to some real metrical games, one of the examples of her often extreme freedom in these songs. And yet here and throughout we hear narrative singing of the most intense and rewarding kind.

Nina Koshetz (30 December 1891 - 14 May 1965) was a Ukrainian, later American, soprano opera and recital singer.

She was born into a family of intellectuals in Kiev, then moved to Moscow and became an opera singer. In 1908—13 she studied in Mosow State Conservatory (professor of solo singing U. Mazetti), her piano teachers were N. Shishkin, K. Igumnov, S. Taneev).[1] Having received voice lessons in France from the retired dramatic soprano Felia Litvinne, she sang leading roles in opera and performed in principal opera houses across Russia and Europe. In the late 1910s she performed at the Petrograd Conservatory and was accompanied by then-unknown Vladimir Horowitz. She had initially resisted being accompanied by the unknown student, but afterward insisted that only he could accompany her there; she subsequently programmed some of Horowitz's songs.

In 1920 she went to America and joined the Chicago Opera Association where she sang in the premiere of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges (1921). She later performed for the Russian Opera Company in New York and on tour in South America. At the end of the 1920s she was active in France, where she appeared in the French premiere of Sadko.

Known for her overly-extravagant life style, her vocal powers declined in the 1930s and in 1940 she retired to Hollywood where she made a living as a voice teacher and restaurateur (a venture that ended in bankruptcy in 1942). She also appeared in bit parts in several Hollywood movies. She died in Santa Ana, California in 1965.

Nina's daughter Marina Koshetz (also known as Marina Schubert) (1912–2001) was a soprano opera singer who appeared with the San Francisco Opera as well as the Metropolitan Opera, New York. She sang in films and wrote a biography of her mother and a screenplay about Nina's love affair with Rachmaninoff both titled The Last Love Song.[2]

 

[edit] Relationship with RachmaninoffShe had a working relationship with composer Sergei Rachmaninoff during the 1910s, and he composed a cycle of six romantic songs dedicated to her (opus 38). Rachmaninoff also played piano accompaniment for Nina Koshetz who preferred a Blüthner piano for its mellower, softer tone (reference is required).

 

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Quick note on grading:

The Grade (Excellent to Poor, I don't give Mint) refers to the WEAR of the record. Any other defects are stated separately

When I listen to a record, I may also give it an aural grade (again E to P), and make a SUBJECTIVE judgment of the pressing quality for hiss and surface noise.
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1 record: 4.99 – 5.85$

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