75-8 | 75 Jahre VDT | R 16 | 2025-11-13 | 15:00 - 16:30
moderiert von Felix Krückels
Mercury Living Presence: A Legend in Recording
75-8-1 | Beginn 15:00 | Dauer 90 min. | Jim Anderson |
Matt Fine | Workshop (Deutsch)
Matt Fine, son of producer Wima Cozart Fine and recording engineer Robert C. Fine, recipients of VDT’s 2025 Gold Medal of Honor, will be in conversation with Jim Anderson exploring the historic label’s recordings. The "Living Presence" catalog, including the single-mike mono (1951–55) and three-mike stereo (1955–67) releases, numbered approximately 300 titles. With best-sellers like the 1954 mono and 1958 stereo recordings of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Living Presence also marks the time when audiophile recordings crossed over to become modest hits among mainstream listeners. The first commercial release of Ravel’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s "Pictures at an Exhibition" on Mercury’s "Olympian Series" with Rafael Kubelik conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and recorded with a Schoeps M201 microphone in the center, caused the New York Times critic Howard Taubman to write that the effect of listening to the recording was "like being in the living presence of the orchestra".