Mercury Orchestral

A list of more than forty of the best titles on Mercury that we’ve done shootouts for, many of which are Must Own records.

Bizet / Saint-Saens / Gounod, et al. – Ballet Highlights From French Opera

More of the Music of Georges Bizet

    • With top grades on both sides, this original Mercury stereo pressing of these renowned ballet works features some of the BEST sound we’ve heard from Paray
    • Listen to the lush strings and the weighty, rich sound on the Massenet piece on side two – that is the sound of a shootout winning pressing
    • The Ballet Music from Faust may just give the impossibly rare RCA (LSC 2449) a run for its money in terms of sound and performance
    • Vibrant orchestrations, top quality sound and scratch-free surfaces combine for an astounding listening experience
    • This spectacular Demo Disc recording is big, clear, rich, dynamic, transparent and energetic – HERE is the sound we love
    • If you’re a fan of delightful orchestral showpieces such as these ballet highlights, this LP from 1961 belongs in your collection
    • The complete list of titles from 1961 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Rossini-Respighi / Ballet For Band / Fennell

More of the Music of Rossini

  • This original Mercury Stereo LP of the Eastman Wind Ensemble’s performance of these wonderful orchestral compositions debuts on the site with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • It’s simply bigger, more transparent, less distorted, more three-dimensional and more REAL than all of what we played
  • Tons of energy, loads of detail and texture, superb transparency and excellent clarity – the very definition of DEMO DISC sound

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Liszt / Enesco – Hungarian Rhapsodies / Roumanian Rhapsodies / Dorati

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1880)

More Orchestral Spectaculars

  • This wonderful collection of exciting rhapsodies returns to the site for only the second time in two years, here with superb Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • It’s also impossibly quiet at Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus, a grade that practically none of our vintage classical titles – even the most well-cared-for ones – ever play at
  • One of the best of the Mercury Living Presence titles – the orchestra is big, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate
  • Beautifully performed by the London Symphony Orchestra (our favorite performances of these works, in fact, and a true orchestral spectacular), under the direction of Antal Dorati
  • Other versions – the Oscar Danon we like on RDG, for example – may be faster, but Dorati and the LSO bring an energy and spirit to these pieces that we feel is unequaled on vintage vinyl
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • Click on this link to see more records like this one of our favorite orchestral performances with top quality sound

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Tchaikovsky – The Nutcracker Ballet / Dorati

More of the Music of Tchaikovsky

  • The Hot Stamper return of this stunning rendition of The Nutcracker, with a Triple Plus (A+++) side three and nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on sides one and four – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • If you love the excitement Dorati brings to warhorses such as this, coupled with the equally exciting sound that Mercury achieved under Robert Fine, you will have a hard time finding a better combination of the two than this very record
  • The sound is glorious – full, rich, spacious, big and transparent, with virtually no smear
  • With this early pressing the power of the orchestra will come to life right in your very own listening room
  • “The last of Tchaikovsky’s three great ballets, and was premiered in 1892, the year before his enigmatic death.

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Wagner for Band / Fennell / Eastman Wind Ensemble

More of the music of Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

TAS List Records Available Now

Reviews and Commentaries for TAS Super Disc Recordings

  • Wagner for Band finally makes its Hot Stamper debut with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • There is plenty on offer for the discriminating audiophile, with the spaciousness, clarity, tonality and freedom from artificiality that are hallmarks of the best Mercury recordings of Fennell leading the EWE
  • Far richer, smoother and livelier than every other pressing we played, with Tubey Magic and space we guarantee you have never heard on any Fennell record before
  • An incredibly rare TAS List recording, now replaced on the list by a Speakers Corner LP – from the looks of it, The Absolute Sound is going deaf in its old age

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Stravinsky / Song of the Nightingale / Dorati

More of the Music of Igor Stravinsky

Not sure with what pressing we wrote about this album many years ago:

I believe you’ll find that Mercury’s sonics are superior to RCA’s for this music, and I prefer Dorati’s interpretation over Reiner’s as well. 

Now we prefer Ansermet’s.

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Anderson / The Music of Leroy Anderson Vol. 3 / Fennell

Hot Stamper Mercury Pressings Available Now

More Recordings Conducted by Frederick Fennel

Volume Three (SR 90400) of Anderson’s recordings for Mercury with Fennell conducting has long been a favorite or ours here at Better Records. The first volume is of course on the TAS Super Disc list, and when you get a good copy of it you will have no trouble believing it is a Super Disc. But so is this one, provided you play the right pressing of course.

On this RFR-1 Maroon label pressing STILL IN THE SHRINK, side two has the Super Hot stamper sound. The sound is shockingly rich, smooth and sweet. Where is the Mercury dryness and screechiness and upper-midrange nasality we’re all so used to from their records? It’s nowhere to be found on this copy, and that’s a good thing!

The strings are huge on this side as well, wall to wall and not bright. The sound is clear and correct from top to bottom!

Side one is not even close I’m sorry to report. The sound is huge and 3-D but there is just much too much smear to qualify as a Hot Stamper pressing. We rate it A to A+. (more…)

Gould / West Point Symphony / Fennell (SR 90220)

Hot Stamper Mercury Pressings Available Now

RFR-3/RFR-1. Quiet and Near Mint! Superb sound.

Explosive, dynamic, big sound. The music on side 2 by Bennett is especially enjoyable.

Performed by the Eastman Wind Ensemble under the direction of Frederick Fennell. This performance also includes Bennett’s ’Symphonic Songs For Band’, Williams’ ’Fanfare and Allegro’, and Work’s “Autumn Walk”.

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Mercury Stereo Sampler Vol. 1 (SRD-1)

Mercury Pressings Available Now

This Mercury Sampler has SUPERB Super Hot Stamper sound on side one, or better — who knows if this isn’t as good as it gets? We can’t find enough clean copies to test so we’re sticking with A++ or better just to be safe.

Either way, this is the BIG, BOLD classic Mercury sound.

Let’s Dance – David Carroll – from Let’s Dance (SR-60001) has the sweet Tubey Magic of the best Living Stereos and the percussion excitement of Bang Baa-room and Harp.

Not every song on side one is a knockout but some of them certainly are, making this a top quality Variety Demo Disc.

Tracks two and three on side one are great, but there may be others you will like equally well.

Side two earned a single plus grade (A+); some of it sounds like it’s made from sub-gen tapes. The Gershwin comes off pretty well with a solid clear piano.

Side One

Rhapsodero – Richard Hayman – from Havana in Hi-Fi (SR-60000)
Let’s Dance – David Carroll – from Let’s Dance (SR-60001)
Rain On The Roof – Dick Contino – from It’s Dance Time (SR-60006)
Birth Of Passion – Clebanoff – from Moods in Music (SR-60005)
The Lady Is A Tramp – Griff Williams – from America’s Most Danceable Music (SR-60007)
Autumn In Rome – Patti Page – from Let’s Get Away from It All (SR-60010)

Side Two

Anderson – Sleigh Ride – The Eastman-Rochester Pops Orchestra – Frederick Fennel – from SR-90009
Prokofiev – March From The Love for Three Oranges – The London Symphony Orchestra – Antal Dorati – from SR-90006
Rhapsody In Blue (Portion) – Eugene List – The Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra – Howard Hanson – from SR-90002
Funky Drums – Pete Rugolo – from Percussion at Work (SR-80003)
Rose Room – Terry Gibbs – from Allen’s All Stars (SR-80004)
Like Someone In Love – Sarah Vaughan – from Sarah Vaughan at the London House (SR-60020)

Offenbach / Gaite Parisienne / Dorati

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach

This lovely Mercury Golden Import LP not only has Super Hot Stamper sound on side one, which is where Gaite Parisienne can be found, but it also boasts one of the greatest performances of the piece ever recorded. 

Dorati is surely The Man when it comes to energy, drive and dynamic excitement with this venerable warhorse. He and his Minneapolis Symphony play the hell out of this boisterous music, and luckily for us audiophiles, the Mercury engineers give us Demonstration Quality Sound to go with it.

The original Mercury release of this record (sr 90016) is a shrill piece of trash, as is the Mercury Wing pressing. So many of the early Mercurys were poorly mastered it seems.

We audiophiles must wait for reissues (either by Mercury or in this case by Philips once they had bought Mercury) to show us how good the sound of a particular recording might actually be. [Not sure I would agree with most of that now in 2022.]

Of course what you really need is the right copy to know ultimately how good the recording can be, and to find it you might have to clean and play ten LPs, or more. That’s where we come in.

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