Audio experts may well have differing views about the Mercury Living Presence recording technique. Is the ''true clarity and full panorama of the sound'' that could be ''so vividly captured'' 30 years ago truly clear and fully panoramic by the state-of-the-art standards of the 1990s? Purely on the evidence of this one disc, my own answer would be no. The panorama has more breadth than depth, the dynamic level is very much one thing (fairly loud) or the other (soft): and the question of expressive nuance raises another sense in which this recording might best be thought of as historical.
The repertory it represents was even less firmly under the fingers of the world's best orchestras in 1960 than it is today, and it remains uncertain whether Dorati's often rather deliberate, literal-minded readings are determined by his need to accommodate orchestral unfamiliarity, or by a didactic intent, his desire to ensure that everything is as clearly articulated and as strongly-shaped as possible. The Lulu-Suite comes off best, for despite the distinctly unseductive singing of Helga Pilarczyk, there is plenty of vivid and subtly nuanced playing that gets to the heart of Berg's dark, doom-laden world, and it runs the most distinguished recent version—Rattle and the CBSO on full-price EMI—commendably close. Dorati and the LSO are also powerfully intense in the great post-Mahlerian march that comprises the third of the Op. 6 Pieces, making up for some rather heavy-handed music-making in Nos. 1 and 2.
The Webern and Schoenberg items are less successful. Webern's miniatures (not otherwise available on CD at the moment) suffer from the uniformly forward placement of such delicate instruments as celesta and mandolin, and Schoenberg's Op. 16—despite the underlining of such expressive devices as the tempo contrasts in No. 4—can seem laboured and unatmospheric beside Rattle, or even Gielen (Wergo/Harmonia Mundi). Historically speaking, nevertheless, the disc is not without interest, and it is excellent value for money.'