Thought Tom Fine and others might be interested in the recording process for
an early LSO recording with Dorati.

 

"The most fascinating period for me in the development of the LSO was during
the Mercury recording sessions. in the summers of the late 1950s. Antal
Dorati combined intense musical passion and a demand for perfection with a
very short fuse and a Hungarian waywardness that gave him unique qualities.
In the space of a few hours, his screaming at us, tempered by careful
measured criticism from the backstage voice of the oh-so-polite Harold
Lawrence, the record producer, polished the orchestra, turning it into the
precision machine that can be heard on those records. The Alban Berg op. 6
Three Pieces for Orchestra could not have been played at a concert in those
days. The recording was made in sections of as little as 16 or even 8 bars,
with every snippet honed to perfection. I remember how my old friend Jay
Friedman, of the CSO was so impressed by our playing! I could hardly bring
myself to tell him how it was really done. This kind of note-bashing could
hardly happen now, in today's LSO, but that kind of training did much to
lift the orchestra from being just competent to brilliant." Denis Wick

 

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Eric Nagamine