Antal Doráti: The Mercury Masters – The Mono Recordings (31CD)

A tour de force of thrilling orchestral playing and brilliant audio engineering, Antal Doráti’s mono recordings are collected for the first time. Newly remastered, this collection comprehensively documents a golden era in American classical recording and most of these vividly-characterized recordings appear on CD for the first time.

“has to be heard to be believed … is it possible to exceed this in the art of reproduced sound?” The New Records

MORE INFORMATION

The Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti joined the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra as its music director in 1949, and immediately began making it into one of the orchestral powerhouses of the post-war United States. Mercury began recording the ensemble in 1952 and continued to do so until his departure in 1960. Doráti’s 51 albums (24 mono, 27 stereo) are a testament to what he achieved with the orchestra during his eleven years there. They reveal a musical personality centred on dynamism, intensity, and an exceptional ability to persuasively articulate rhythms.

Eloquence presents the most complete ever reissue of the Doráti/Minneapolis legacy in two ‘original jackets’ boxes, faithfully representing the contents of the albums as they were first issued. New remastering made or supervised by Thomas Fine, son of Mercury’s long-time chief engineer and producer, as well as original remastering for CD by Wilma Cozart Fine, bring this legacy to life as never before. Thomas Fine contributes a ‘sessionography’ to each box detailing the technical facets of the Mercury Living Presence recordings, and Dennis D. Rooney is the author of authoritative booklet notes surveying the history of the partnership on record as well as his personal memoirs of the period.

The mono box begins with a blistering Firebird Suite of Stravinsky and ends with a contemporary Hungarian pairing of unrivalled idiomatic flair, brilliance (Kodály’s Peacock Variations) and lurid, controlled violence (Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin). Further highlights include the three Tchaikovsky ballets, in versions that quickly became gramophone classics and ‘library choices’ and stayed that way for decades.

TRACK LIST

`CD 1
BORODIN: Symphony No. 2*
STRAVINSKY: L’Oiseau de feu – Suite
*FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 2
BERLIOZ: Le Carnaval romain
RAVEL: Pavane; Alborada del gracioso
DEBUSSY: Nocturnes
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 3
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 4
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 5
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony No. 4 ‘Italian’
MOZART: Symphony No. 40
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 6
RESPIGHI: Pini di Roma; Fontane di Roma
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 7
R. STRAUSS: Ein Heldenleben
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 8
GERSHWIN (arr. Russell Bennett): Porgy and Bess (A Symphonic Picture)
GOULD: Spirituals in Five Movements
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 9
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5; Overtures – Egmont; Coriolan; Leonore No. 3
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 10
COPLAND: Symphony No. 3

CD 11
JOHANN STRAUSS II: Waltzes
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 12
STRAVINSKY: Le Sacre du printemps
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 13
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Nutcracker
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 14
BARTÓK: Concerto for Orchestra
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 15
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 16
RAVEL: Daphnis et Chloé
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 17
RESPIGHI: Feste Romane; Vetrate di Chiesa

CD 18
GINASTERA: Variaciones concertantes
BRITTEN: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

CDs 19–20
TCHAIKOVSKY: Swan Lake

CD 21
TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 Overture (including spoken commentary); Capriccio italien
Deems Taylor (narrator)

CD 22
BRITTEN: The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
TCHAIKOVSKY: Nutcracker Suite
Deems Taylor (narrator)
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 23
STRAVINSKY: Petrouchka (Version 1947)
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 24–26
TCHAIKOVSKY The Sleeping Beauty
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 27
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 3; Academic Festival Overture; Tragic Overture (mono and stereo versions)
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 28
BEETHOVEN: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 29
STORIES WITH MUSIC
TCHAIKOVSKY: The Story of the Nutcracker Prince;
The Story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses
R. STRAUSS: The Story of Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
Jerry Terheyden (narrator)
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 30
SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 8 ‘Unfinished’
TCHAIKOVSKY: Romeo and Juliet
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
FIRST RELEASE ON CD

CD 31
KODÁLY: Peacock Variations
BARTÓK: The Miraculous Mandarin – Suite
Chicago Symphony Orchestra