The Institute holds a small collection of extraordinary Russian sound documents: zvukovye pis'ma, or musical letters. They were issued around 1950 in the Soviet Union. The musical letter is a bifold picture postcard with a supplementary sheet and a small flexible disc glued onto it. A topical song, either from the Soviet classical repertoire such as the 'Song of World Youth' and the 'Song of World Peace', or a love song can be heard.
Its text is printed on the postcard together with a picture of the composer or performer of the song. There is also space for a short message to the recipient.
The musical mail was edited by the composer Vano Muradeli and published by Vserossiiskoe Teatral'noe Obshchestvo in a run of 40,000 copies.
Some information is taken from: patefon.tol.ru/history.htm
Click here for more images, song texts, sheet music and soundtapes of the songs.