Covering recordings from July 1956 to July 1961, here are early stereo spectaculars on Mercury, under the inspired baton of Antal Doráti: classic albums of Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and many more in a new ‘Original Jackets’ Limited Edition.
Eloquence has been making a systematic and critically acclaimed survey of the Mercury legacy of recordings made by the Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti. Boxes of his complete recordings with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia Hungarica have revived albums from the 1950s and 60s which set new standards for lifelike sound and intensely engaged performances in the recording studio.
Volume 1 of Doráti’s London recordings covers sessions from July 1956 to July 1961. Conductor and orchestra met for an intensive fortnight each year after the end of the concert season. Both the conductor and the Mercury engineers were demanding in their pursuit of perfection, in terms of orchestral attack, ensemble, balance, colour and all the disparate elements which contribute towards the kind of repeatability that made these albums such artistic and commercial successes.
The repertoire for these Mercury sessions in London played to Dorati’s strengths. Volume 1 includes library versions of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Stravinsky’s Firebird. Symphonies by Haydn (Nos. 45, 100 & 101) and Mozart (No. 40) are rhythmic and stylish. Anthologies of Verdi and Wagner orchestral music from operas tap into Dorati’s theatrical strengths, no less than ballet scores by Khachaturian (Gayaneh) and Copland (Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid). A powerful meeting of minds is achieved with the pianist Byron Janis in the standard-setting Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, with the violinist Henryk Szernyg in Brahms and the cellist János Starker in Dvo?ák.
As David Patmore reveals in his new essay for the collection, illuminating the background to Doráti’s relationships with both Mercury and with the LSO, the Mercury team wanted to make ‘event’ recordings of a new and unrivalled immediacy. Unique to this new collection is the first official release of Dvorák’s Carnaval Overture.
