- With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides, this early Mercury pressing of Stravinsky’s Classical Masterpiece is doing everything right
- One listen to either side of this pressing and you’ll see why this is one of the top Mercury titles of all time
- The Heavy Vinyl reissues – at 45 or 33, on one disc or four – barely begin to capture the energy and drive Dorati brings to the work
- “The magic lies in the elaborate orchestration and the excitingly uneven rhythmic writing. Stravinsky changes the orchestration of his themes at each repetition, breaks them down into their constituent parts, pushes their accents across the bar-line, and moves them out of sync with their own accompaniments.”
- There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performances with the highest quality sound. This record is certainly deserving of a place on that list.
- 1960 was a great year for classical recordings – other Must Own Orchestral releases can be found here.
This is one of the more challenging classical shootouts for us to get going. At least 80% of the copies we buy these days — for many, many hundreds of dollars each, I might add — go right back to the seller. This is one of the more reasonably quiet copies we’ve come across recently, making it a special one indeed.
Both sides are so clear, alive, and transparent, with huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Zero compression.
This pressing boasts rich, sweet strings, especially for a Mercury. Both sides really get quiet in places, a sure sign that all the dynamics of the master tape were protected in the mastering of this copy.
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