House of Broadcasting and Sound Recording, State
House of Broadcasting and Sound Recording, State
(GDRZ), an artistic and industrial enterprise of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It was founded in 1938 as the House of Sound Recording for the production of phonograph records. In 1941 it began making recordings for both radio broadcasting and for the production of phonograph records. In 1959 it became the national broadcasting and recording center.
The GDRZ broadcasts over a national network and abroad and makes all types of sound recordings. It produces tapes on order for institutions and factories and makes copies from magnetic recordings for local radio and television broadcasting. It also makes copies from magnetic recordings on order for film studios, theaters, and various organizations. It mass-produces recordings on magnetic tape for sale to the public and does restorative work to preserve old recordings of historical and artistic value. The GDRZ has special studios for recording and broadcasting from theaters, concert halls, and stadiums; in the largest of these establishments it has at its disposal specially equipped relaying stations.
The volume of broadcasting by All-Union Radio through the GDRZ was 350 hours a day in 1971; the volume of magnetic recordings distributed to various organizations each year totals 40,000 hours.
The GDRZ produces documentary recordings and recordings of the best works of Soviet and foreign classical and contemporary literature and music, which constitute the recording library of All-Union Radio. The recording library of the GDRZ has over 100,000 recordings and is augmented annually by about 400 hours of new recordings.
A large number of GDRZ recordings are used by the All-Union Phonograph Recording Studio of the Melodiia firm for the production of phonograph records (until 1958 the production of phonograph-record matrixes was under the jurisdiction of the GDRZ). The GDRZ exports recordings and conducts exchanges of recordings with foreign broadcasting organizations. Some recordings of the GDRZ have received gold medals at international competitions, for example, recordings of M. P. Mussorgsky’scon’s Godunov, S. S. Prokofiev’s War and Peace, and D. D. Shostakovich’s Katerina Izxmailova.
S. I. ZADOV