Top Engineers – Robert Eberenz

Franck – Symphony in D Minor / Paray

More Mercury Classical Recordings

  • Frack’s Symphony in D Minor appears on the site for only the second time ever, here with lush, textured and powerful Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this Maroon Label Mercury Stereo pressing
  • The orchestra is big, rich and tubey, yet the dynamics and transparency are first rate
  • The first copy we got hold of was a good — our notes read: “Rich and full brass and strings”
  • I regret to say that unfortunately that puts this particular recording in the minority when it comes to Mercury’s 60s releases
  • This is the best sounding recording of the work that we know of, and the first recording of the Franck to hit the site in more than a decade
  • Some old record collectors (like me) say classical recording quality ain’t what it used to be – here’s all the proof anyone with two working ears and top quality audiophile equipment would need to make the case

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Liszt / Smetana / Mussorgsky – Les Préludes / The Moldau / Night On Bald Mountain / Dorati

More of the music of Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

More Recordings on Mercury

  • Boasting superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this original copy will show you just how good the Mercury engineers were back in those days
  • Dorati breathes life into these concert hall favorites as only he can, and the Mercury engineers (Fine and Eberenz) capture the excitement on tape as only they can
  • We have a preference for Dorati’s recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, and a record like this will show you exactly why we do
  • The exciting sound of Mercury lives on through the vintage disc they made all those years ago – you can forget the idea that anybody will come along and produce sound of this quality
  • If you’re a fan of orchestral showpieces such as these, this LP from 1960 belongs in your collection

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Bach / Suites For Solo Cello No. 2 & No. 5 / Starker

More of the Music of J.S. Bach

  • An early Mercury label pressing of Starker’s legendary 1963 recording of Bach’s sublime music for solo cello with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom
  • It’s also fairly quiet at Mint Minus Minus, a grade that even our most well-cared-for vintage classical titles have trouble playing at
  • The bass-boosted, muddy, veiled and ambience-challenged sound of the modern Heavy Vinyl remaster is nowhere to be found here
  • I would bet money that whatever version is currently available has plenty of shortcomings along those lines, which may be acceptable to the mid-fi crowd but is positively ruinous on the high-fidelity systems that our customers tend to have (or why on earth would they keep paying these prices?)
  • We are very confidant that it will beat the pants off any Heavy Vinyl reissue because every one of those that we played was opaque, muddy and thick enough to have us crying “uncle” after five minutes
  • Some Mercury pressings from the 50s have absolutely amazing sound – we should know, we’ve played them

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Prokofiev & Rachmaninoff / Piano Concertos / Janis / Kondrashin

More of the music of Sergei Prokofiev

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • This pressing has White Hot Stamper (A+++) sound on side one – sound that must be experienced to be believed! – backed with stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the second side – exceptionally quiet vinyl too 
  • The finest recordings of the Prokofiev No. 3 and Rachmaninoff No. 1 – these performances by Janis are legendary, and with phenomenal sonics such as these, the combination of sound and performance here is virtually unmatched in our experience
  • So big, so, rich, so transparent, so dynamic and full of life, we guarantee you have never heard a better piano concerto record in your life
  • This is one of the two Must Own Mercury piano concerto recordings, the other being SR 90283, which often suffers from inner groove distortion — not to worry, as a matter of grading policy, we check the inner grooves of every record we offer on the site
  • For a more complete list, the highest quality recordings of piano concertos that we’ve auditioned to date can be found here
  • To see more of the best orchestral recordings with top quality sound we know of, click here

This is a superb early Mercury Plum label stereo pressing of two of Byron Janis’s most famous performances (along with the Rachmaninoff 3rd, which is every bit as good). It’s a longtime member of the TAS Super Disc list.

The recording is explosively dynamic and on this copy, the sound was positively jumping out of the speakers. In addition, the brass and strings are full-bodied and rich, with practically no stridency, an unusual feat the Mercury engineers seem to have accomplished while in Russia.

Big, rich sound can sometimes present problems for piano recordings. You want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies pull off that trick without sounding thin. This one showed us a piano that was both clear and full-bodied.

With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc Quality sound by any standard. Once the needle has dropped you will quickly forget about the sound and simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation captured on some of the greatest analog recordings of all time.

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