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Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set CD5 van55
Serge Prokofiev & Modeste Moussorgsky / Romeo and Juliet & A Night on Bald Mountain
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, dir.
An Original 35 mm Magnetic Film Recording, USA 4/1962

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet has everything to offer: tension-provoking dissonances, lyrical almost over the top passages, ethereal quiet beauty, and outright passion and tragedy. No wonder it's so popular. But it takes a special conductor, and a really good orchestra to mine its many treasures. Skrowaczewski has done it again. Truly one of the great conductors of our time who is not known nearly well enough. The treasure of the Mercury recording is Mercury's engineering--up close and in your face. It's thrilling, if a little artificial.