Mercury Records

Mercury Living Presence series[edit]

In 1951, under the direction of recording engineer C. Robert (Bob) Fine and recording director David Hall, Mercury Records initiated a recording technique using a single microphone to record symphony orchestras. Fine had for several years used a single microphone for Mercury small-ensemble classical recordings produced by John Hammond and later Mitch Miller (indeed, Miller, using his full name of Mitchell Miller, made several recordings as a featured oboe player in the late 1940s for Mercury). The first record in this new Mercury Olympian Series was Pictures at an Exhibition performed by Rafael Kubelík and the Chicago Symphony. The group that became the best known using this technique was the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, which, under the leadership of conductor Antal Doráti, made a series of classical albums that were well reviewed and sold briskly, including the first-ever complete recordings of Tchaikovsky's ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. Dorati's 1954 one-microphone monaural recording (Mercury MG 50054) and 1958 three-microphone stereo rerecording (Mercury MG 50054) of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture^[23] included dramatic overdub recordings of 1812-era artillery and the bells of the Yale University Carillon. A stereo release in 1960 featured new recordings of the cannon shots, and the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon at the Riverside Church in Chicago.^[24] Besides Mercury's mono and stereo versions of the 1812, only one other classical album rang up gold-record sales in the 1950s in the U.S.^[25]


The New York Times music critic Howard Taubman described the Mercury sound on Pictures at an Exhibition as "being in the living presence of the orchestra"^[26] and Mercury eventually began releasing their classical recordings under the 'Living Presence' series' name. The recordings were produced by Mercury vice president Wilma Cozart, who later married Bob Fine. Cozart took over recording director duties in 1953 and also produced the CD reissues of more than half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog in the 1990s. By the late 1950s, the Mercury Living Presence crew included session musical supervisors Harold Lawrence and Clair van Ausdall and associate engineer Robert Eberenz.


Besides the recordings with the Chicago and Minneapolis orchestras, Mercury also recorded Howard Hanson with the Eastman Rochester Orchestra, Frederick Fennell with the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and Paul Paray with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.


In late 1955, Mercury began using three omnidirectional microphones to make stereo recordings on three-track tape. The technique was an expansion on the mono process—center was still paramount. Once the center, single microphone was set, the sides were set to provide the depth and width heard in the stereo recordings. The center microphone still fed the mono LP releases, which accompanied stereo LPs well into the 1960s. From 1961, Mercury enhanced the three-microphone stereo technique by using 35-mm magnetic film instead of half-inch tape for recording. The greater emulsion thickness, track width, and speed (90 ft/min or 18 in/sec) of 35-mm magnetic film increased prevention of tape layer print-through and gained in addition extended frequency range and transient response. The Mercury 'Living Presence' stereo records were mastered directly from the three-track tapes or magnetic film, with a 3-2 mix occurring in the mastering room. The same technique—and restored vintage equipment of the same type—was used during the CD reissues. Specifically, three-track tapes were recorded on Ampex 300-3 (½-in, three-track) machines at 15 in/sec. The 35-mm magnetic film recordings were made on three-track Westrex film recorders. The 3-2 mixdown was done on a modified Westrex mixer. For the original LPs, the mixer directly fed the custom cutting chain. At Fine Recording in New York City, the Westrex cutter head on a Scully lathe was fed by modified McIntosh 200W tube amplifiers with very little feedback in the system. Older mono records were made with a Miller cutter head.


The original LP releases of the classical recordings continued through 1968. The Mercury classical-music catalogue (including the Living Presence catalogue) is currently managed by Decca Label Group through Philips Records, which reissued the recordings on LP and then CD. In turn, Mercury now manages the pop/rock catalog of Philips Records.


In 2012, Decca Classics, the current owner of the Mercury Living Presence label, issued a value-priced 51-CD box that included 50 of the 1990s CD titles (remastered by Wilma Cozart Fine), a bonus CD containing an interview with Wilma Cozart Fine, and a deluxe booklet detailing the history of Mercury Living Presence. The CD set was issued worldwide and was sold by major retailers. A limited-edition six-LP box set was also issued. The CD set brings back into print dozens of titles that had not been available as manufactured CDs since the early 2000s.


In 2013, Decca Classics issued a second, 55-CD box set, along with a second six-LP box set. The CD box set included two bonus discs: a new reissue of the 1953 monophonic recording of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" by Dorati with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and a first-time-on-CD reissue of the premiere recording of John Corigliano's Piano Concerto, played by Hilde Somer with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Victor Alessandro.


On January 4, 2015, Mercury co-founder Irwin Steinberg died at the age of 94.^[27]