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Mercury Living Presence Boxed Set CD48 van55.
Claude Debussy (1862?1918): La Mer; Iberia; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun; Ravel: Mother Goose Suite. Paul Paray - Detroit Symphony Orchestra

The microphone technique Mercury records used in this and other stereo recordings. 
Engineer C. Robert Fine did not use just two microphones for stereo. Rather, he felt a solid center image to be important, and so kept the center microphone that he had been using for Mercury's "Living Presence" monaural recordings since 1951. To this he then added left and right microphones to convey the stereo image information. For most of Mercury's stereo records, each of these microphones were sent to separate tape tracks on a 3-track Ampex tape recorder. Mixdown to 2-track stereo was only done at the final disc-cutting session. (Some early stereo sessions were recorded to a 2-track recorder, but with the same microphone setup as I have described.) This use of three omni-directional microphones to record an orchestra in stereo has since been regarded as one of the classic ways to make orchestra recordings.
Wilma Cozart, director of the original sessions, did a superlative rehab job here compared with the old Mercury first edition vinyl. Some of the tubby bass, the tape hiss, and Paray humming along, is gone. Paray's classic performances remain in all their treasurable splendor. He was the one conductor who understood that Impressionism had more to do with classically-wrought clarity of expression to develop delicate, pointillistic color than mushy vague outlines and verdigris; this is particularly true in Iberia, and he delivers it with metric pomp, stature, and ethnic color like no other. This Iberia is Basque Iberia, the only Spain Debussy ever visited, and the ethnic heritage of Ravel. We really feel in those highways and byways, and no wonder Falla was impressed with the piece.
Paray is also the only recorded maestro to give that gong a really good WHACK in Ma Mere L'Oye; everyone else wimpily taps it...in the score, Ravel specifically directs SFZORZANDO. Cozart kept a little background noise for us to get all that Paray color into our ears and heads.