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Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set
 
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Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set [Box set]

Janos Starker, Antal Dorati Audio CD
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Price: £75.17 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Audio CD (30 Jan 2012)
  • Number of Discs: 51
  • Format: Box set
  • Label: Decca (UMO)
  • ASIN: B005XBA9Y8
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,430 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Product Description

CD Description

Mercury Living Presence is special in many ways - an American company, from the heyday of classical recording in the U.S. that reproduced some of the most sonically realistic recordings at the dawn of the stereo era. Precious few stereo LPs were pressed when these recordings were issued, and they became some of the rarest, most collectible classical discs ever. Mercury Living Presence continues to enjoy a special reputation as one of the most enterprising, prestigious and sonically-spectacular labels in the history of classical recording.

Some of these recording have been available on CD and on SACD. However, many are now deleted and only available 2nd-hand or through auction sellers at pemium prices. This 50-album Box Set (plus bonus interview CD with Wilma Cozart Fine, Mercury’s producer) affords collectors an opportunity to acquire 50 classic recordings at a terrific price, in a box which may well become collectible itself.


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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 37 people found the following review helpful
By P. H. Cartwright VINE™ VOICE
Format:Audio CD
These are just my preliminary impressions, having received this set this morning, although some of the recordings were already familiar.

As I write this, Byron Janis is playing the Schumann piano concerto and very well too. This is one of the later recordings made by Mercury (1962) using 35mm optical film instead of magnetic tape and the sound quality is really good. I believe that the film has suffered less deterioration in the ensuing 50 years than tape, with its tendency to "print through" and flake.

Overall, on the CDs listened to so far, the sound has that "brightness" that I have always associated with American recordings of this period. The ear soon acclimatises but the initial slight shock lingers in the mind - try disc 18 (Dorati, LSO, Khachaturian's Ganeh suite) to see what I mean.

Sound quality of these recordings, made on purely analogue equipment with valve (tube) amplification, is still very good. I'm playing it back on valve-based amplification to get the full effect.

Of course, the most striking characteristic of this set is its amazing value - just over £1.50 each for 51 of some of the finest recordings ever made, often by great artists. You can't go wrong at this price.
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I remember being a teenager in Los Angeles in the 1960's at my favorite record shop (remember those?), browsing the classical record bins and looking at the bright coloured stereo band at the top of those "Mercury Living Presence" LPs. How I longed to buy them all. But alas, I didn't have the coin in my pocket in those days.

In 1990 Polygram began reissuing these treasures on compact disc. I was in heaven, because at long last I could possess these long sought after albums. From 1990 to 1999 Polygram issued 125 "Mercury Living Presence" titles on CD (not counting samplers or reissue CD sets). Some were multi CD sets. There was a short lived SACD reissue series by Universal Music from 2004-2005 totaling 20 titles from the same catalogue. Most all these CD and SACD titles are now out of print. These CDs and SACDs are at the top of the list as my favorite recordings in my music collection.

Now we have all been given another chance at acquiring some of these milestone recordings. Universal Music has issued this magnificent 51 CD box set at an unbelievably low price. Some of the out-of-print original individual compact discs would cost you more than this set to acquire! All the performances in this set are the original digital transfers by Wilma Cozart Fine, who supervised the original recording sessions and LP issues with her husband, the genius sound engineer, Robert Fine.

Included in this set are the first mono recordings from 1951 with Kubelik and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Also, stereo recordings by Dorati, Hanson, Paray, Fennell, Janis, Szeryng, Starker, Bachauer, The Romeros with the Minneapolis, Detroit, Eastman-Rochester, London Symphony orchestras. Also included is an excellent 63 page booklet with photos and a short (12 minute) bonus interview disc with Wilma Cozart Fine.

As with any reissue "collection" I want to know why did they pick this recording instead of that one? Why isn't there any Paray/Detroit Ravel or Debussy, Hanson conducting Bloch or other Dorati performances? This of course reflects my own taste. Overall I would say that Universal has done an outstanding job. Let's hope there will be a Volume 2 box set!

This is a CD set for any classical music lover, audiophile, record collector or historian. The sound on these "Mercury Living Presence" CDs outshines even the latest SACD releases! Get this one while you can. I wager it will not be available for a very long time...
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70 of 72 people found the following review helpful
37 percent 13 Feb 2012
Format:Audio CD
50 CDs from the Mercury Living Presence series released in the early to late 1990s (the 51th CD is a bonus, with an interview with Wilma Cozart Fine, the producer of those already legendary reissues): of course, this reissue is as much about what is NOT included as what is. Under the guidance of Wilma Cozart, Philips/Universal released more than 100 reissuses from the Mercury catalog - I've counted 135 CDs (some in 2- or 3-CD sets) excluding the two compilations "You Are There!", and I think my Mercury discography is complete. Some were also later issued in SACD form (I am aware of 20 releases) - but apparently those were not produced by Wilma Cozart, and, unlike the straight CDs, they weren't transfers from the orignal 35mm-film. Anyway, those SACDs are now selling at very unreasonable prices, and likewise with many of the original CDs, also offered at steep prices on the secondary market, so it is good to have at least part of them (50 / 135 makes 37 %) back at less than 2 pounds a disc. The set will be very welcome at least to newcomers who wouldn't have most of them already. Not my case: I have too many of the individual issues to make it worthwhile to replace the whole, just to get the few I am missing. So I'll have to keep scouting on the net in search of affordable opportunities.

All the CDs on this collector's edition are straight reissues from the original CDs, with no reshuffling of material. No cause for concern here: those original CDs were already very generous in timing. This collector's edition gathers all the Janis from the Mercury CD series (5 CDs), the Bachauer (4 CD), the Szeryng (3 CDs), the Romeros (3 CDs), 6 Starker out of 7 (missing is the Chopin Sonata), 2 Kubelik out of 4 (missing Dvorak's New World and the Kubelik/Dorati compilation of Hindemith Schoenberg Bartok Kodaly). 14 CDs conducted by Dorati (other than Concertos) provide the main bulk of the programs featured in the box, but still those selections only skim the surface. Among the missing ones are his complete Brahms and Tchaikovsky symphonies and Swan Lake, his two Respighi and two Rimsky CDs, his Schoenberg-Berg-Webern collection with the London Symphony Orchestra, three Bartok out of 5, Dvorak Symphonies 7 & 8, Beethoven Symphonies 5-7. The Paray selections are only apetizers, out of 18 Paray CDs the box offers a paltry 2. There are 6 out of the 18 Fennell CDs (I can certainly do without hours an hours of Marches!), 3 out of 16 Hansons (only one out of three of himself conducting his own works, and not his Gershwin with Eugene List), and none of the 3 Puyana CDs. The rest is the famous Russian Balalaika and one Skrowacewski.

Here's the Edition's complete content. The Mercury Living Presence series is not entirely easy to track down on this website, because not all are listed under the label Mercury: some come under Philips, some others under Polygram Records. Unfortunately I cannot provide the product links to each original CD release, since these reviews are limited to 10 such product links: and it's a little under 50 (accounting for the 2-CD sets) I'd need to provide here. But I will at least provide the label numbers of the original CD, the ASIN numbers, and those of the SACD reissue when relevant.

CD 1
Kubelik / Chicago SO 23 & 24 April 1951
Mussorgsky / Ravel: Pictures at an exhibition, Bartók: Music for strings, percussion and celesta
434 378 Moussorgsky (orch. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition / Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

CD 2
Kubelik / CSO 4-6 December 1952
Smetana: Má Vlast
434 379 Smetana: Má Vlast

CD 3
Howard Hanson / Eastman-Rochester Orchestra
Fiesta in Hi-Fi (works of McBride, Nelson, Mitchell, Vardell, William Grant Still, Ginastera's Ouverture to a Creole Faust)
Recorded: Oct. 1956 (1-4, 6), May 1956 (5), October 1959 (7-9)
434 324 Hanson Conducts Fiesta in Hi-Fi

CD 4
Dorati / Minneapolis Symphony /
Philharmonia Hungarica
Kodály (Hary Janos-Suite, Galanta & Marosszek Dances) & Bartók (Hungarian Sketches, Roumanian Dances)
432 005 Antal Dorati Conducts Kodály & Bartók

Háry János, Hungarian Sketches and Roumanian Folk Dances were recorded on 17 Nov. 1956, Marosszék and Galánta were recorded on 2 June 1958 in the Grosse Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna.

CD 5
Menuhin / Dorati / Minneapolis Symphony
Bartók: Violin Concerto No.2 (17 Febr. 1957); Second Suite (26 Nov. 1955)
434 350 Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2; Second Suite

CD 6
Frederick Fennell / Estman-Rochester Pops
Hi-Fi a la Española (25 March 1957) & Excerpts from Popovers (1959)
434 349 Hi-Fi a La Espanola & Popovers

CD 7
Dorati / London Symphony Orchestra /
Minneapolis Symphony
Prokofiev: Scythian Suite; Love for Three Oranges (4 July 1957); Symphony 5 (November 1959)
432 753 Prokofiev: Scythian suite; Love for Three Oranges suite; Symphony No. 5

CD 8
Howard Hanson - The Composer and his Orchestra (with Merry Mount-Suite (Oct. 1957), Mosaics (May 1960), "For the First Time" (May 1963) and Piano Concerto (May 1965)
434 371 The Composer and His Orchestra

Note that the original reissue came with a second disc with a discussion by Hanson of orchestration and some of the works, with musical examples. Apparently, not here.

CD 9
Dorati / Minneapolis Symphony
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture (April 1958); Capriccio Italien (Dec. 1955)
Beethoven: Wellington's Victory (June 1960)
434 360 Tchaikovsky: 1812 Festival Overture; Capriccio Italien; Beethoven: Wellington's Victory.

Note that the same program was also published earlier on 416 448, but with Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet-Overture instead of Capriccio italien, Dorati cond Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, Romeo & Juliet Overture ; Beethoven Wellington's Victory (Mercury). Apparently this earlier batch of reissues (I've located also a Sousa disc by Fennell and Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances by Dorati) was NOT supervized by Wilma Cozart and not made after the original 35 mm films, but from x generation dubs previously used for LPs, so they are better avoided.

CD 10
Dorati / Minneapolis Symphony (5-6 April 1958)
Dvorák: Slavonic Dances, opp.46 & 72
434 384 ASIN B0000057NE

CD 11
Howard Hanson / Eastman-Rochester Orchestra
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite (5 May 1958); Herbert: Cello Concerto No.2 (Georges Miquelle, 20 Oct. 1957)
434 355 ASIN B0000057MR. The original issue has also Grofé's Mississipi-Suite (4 & 5 May 1958), so I am supposing that the Collector's edition does too.

CD 12
Frederick Fennell / Eastman Wind Ensemble
British and American Band Classics, with Gordon Jacob Suite "William Byrd", Walton Crown Imperial March, Holst Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo (21 November 1958), Robert Russell Bennett Symphonic Songs, Clifton Williams Fanfare and Allegro (3 May 1959)
432 009 ASIN B0000057KR

CD 13
Dorati / Minneapolis Symphony /
London Symphony Orchestra
Stravinsky: Petrouchka (4 April 1959); Le Sacre du printemps (15 November 1959)
434 331 ASIN B0000057M3 (I assume the reissue has also the Four Etudes from 7 July 1964 as on the original CD)

CD 14
Paray / Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Suppé (29 Nov. 1959) & Auber (4 April 1959): Overtures
434 309 ASIN B0000057LK or B000C4CCAK. This one was also released on SACD, 470 638-2 ASIN B0000DC15J.

CD 15
Paray / Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique (Nov. 1959); Hungarian March (April 1959); Trojan March (April 1959); The Corsaire, Overture (March 1958); The Roman Carnival, Overture (March 1958).
434 328 ASIN B0000057M0, SACD 475 6622 B000AC5B02

CD 16
Frederick Fennell / Eastman Wind Ensemble
Sousa: Sound Off! & Sousa on Review: 24 Favorite Marches
434 300 B0000057LB SACD 475 6182 B0002O3902.
Tracks 1-12: 2 May 1960; 13-24: 5 May 1961.
As mentioned there had been an earlier release of the Sousa Marches by Fennel, 416 147-2 ASIN B00000E347, but I haven't been able to establish if it collected the same 24, and anyway it is one of those non-Wilma Cozart remastered releases.

CD 17
Dorati / London Symphony Orchestra
Enesco: Roumanian Rhapsody No.1 /
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6
(Enesco + HR 1 & 3: 13 & 14 June 1960; HR 2,4-6: 19-21 July 1963)
432 015 B0000057KX SACD 475 6185 B0007YP0TU

CD 18
Dorati / London Symphony Orchestra (15 and 17 June 1960)
Khachaturian: Gayaneh
Skrowaczewski / Minneapolis Symphony (25 March 1961)
Shostakovich: Symphony No.5
434 323 B0000057LV

CD 19
Dorati / London Symphony Orchestra
Enesco: Roumanian Rhapsody No. Read more ›
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