Vesteralen

This morning I was reading an article in STEREOPHILE about Mercury Living Presence recordings that detailed the work of the Fines - Robert & Wilma. It's always exciting to come across references to people and their achievements of which I had been previously in the dark. The article impelled me to look up more information on the Fines, and particularly on Wilma, whose story is remarkable.



The bare outline of it is that after graduating from college, Wilma began working for Antal Dorati. She left Minnesota for New York because of problems with the long winters and ended up working for Mercury Records. Mercury was new to the classical music field and Wilma had contacts along with her audio engineering skills.

After supervising the classical division at Mercury for a number of years in the 1950's and 1960's, she left to raise her family. But, she returned to the business in the 1980's to prepare the catalog for CD release.

You can read the story here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383436369039243.html