fwiw
Ordered from Amazon France (just over $101), shipped
from UK. No problems noted.
A few comments-
I was not familiar with RAFAEL PUYANA, harpsichordist, but see he recorded
many albums for Mercury/Philips, his last recordings for SanCtuS. He was
somewhat controversial in regard to performance practice. Wonder if any
have any strong opinions of his work ???
It is wonderful to be able to obtain these Living Presence recordings at
so incredibly low prices, however I do miss having annotations which were
part of the original albums, and in the very few vocal performances, some
sense of the texts (either text and translation or summaries). I understand
that it might be too expensive to include all this text in the booklets, but
it could be included as a .pdf file on a disc, or made available online at
Universal's website.
Best wishes, Thomas.
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wade Lewis
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 12:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Mercury Living Presence 3
well My copy of vol 3 arrived, sent from Amazon German location though I
purchased it from Amazon Italy. All the discs appear to be correct so that
is one good thing. My thanks go to Tom Fine for his participation in this
effort.
What I am sorry about is that from the documentation, this is the last
volume that will be issued. This means there is a significant group of
Mercury recordings that will never be available in high quality CD
transfers. That includes most of the mono orchestral issues (especially the
remaining Kubeliks, the Dorati Sleeping Beauty and various Hansons), ALL the
chamber music monos and a still sizeable number of Stereo items, whether
missing individual tracks or whole LPs. This makes me sad as, having spent
a large block of time relistening to the existing CD issues has reinforced
my impression of the entire catalog as a major statement of the quality of
recordings made by Mercury in the 1950s-60s.
I am happy that I have almost all the monos in my LP collection but now it
seems that i will be running around trying to find good condition Stereo LPs
once I determine which ones are outstanding as unreleased CD items.
My OTHER observation is the wonderful quality of the graphics of the
original LP covers. The boldness of the designs certainly matched the
statements made by the recordings themselves.
Finally, looking at the recording dates, it is interesting to see that the
Capriccio italien on the Stereo 1812/Wellington's Victory CD in vol 1 is the
same recording that appears in Vol 3 along with the mono 1812. I had always
wondered if they were the same or different recordings.
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