Trust Your Ears: The Mercury Living Presence story Simon Barnett, dCS

In our final episode, we delve into the process behind an ongoing project to make the entire Mercury Living Presence catalogue available on streaming services worldwide. Abbey Road Studios engineer Jared Hawkes talks to us about working on high-resolution digital transfers of the label’s master tapes at a purpose built archive facility in London, while Tom Fine tells us about remastering several of the catalogue’s mono and stereo recordings for a new era, and bringing the label’s music to a wider audience than ever before. Plus, we look back at some of the musical highlights from the catalogue and reflect on its relevance today.

In episode 2, we turn to the 1980s and the advent of digital audio to learn how the Mercury Living Presence catalogue was remastered for CD. Tom Fine explains how his mother, Wilma Cozart Fine, came to be working on the remastering project 25 years after retiring from the music industry, and mastering engineer Dennis Drake reveals how he and Wilma transferred Mercury’s vast collection of LPs to the digital domain.

We also examine the role that dCS played in the remastering process, and the pioneering technologies that allowed Wilma and Dennis to preserve the magic of the original LPs. Plus, Rob Cowan and Michael Gray reflect on the Mercury catalogue’s enduring influence and appeal.

Our opening episode reflects on the birth and evolution of Mercury Living Presence and the people who shaped its distinctive sound. Through interviews with music historian Michael Gray and mastering engineer Tom Fine (son of the original Mercury Living Presence producer, Wilma Cozart Fine, and original recording engineer C. Robert 'Bob' Fine), we explore how the label became a leading force in classical music, earning global acclaim for its imaginative repertoire, novel recording techniques and evocative LP releases.

We also uncover the stories behind some of the label’s most beloved and influential recordings, from 1951’s Pictures at an Exhibition (produced with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra), to its spectacular recording of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture, plus collaborations with Byron Janis, Frederick Fennell, Howard Hanson and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Hear a selection of highlights from the forthcoming series, along with excerpts from the Mercury Living Presence catalogue