Musical Heritage Society LP's

I belonged to the MHS for many years, as did my mother, and I still have about 75 of their LP's. From a performance standpoint, most of their recordings are good to very good, and some are outstanding. In many respects, MHS recordings were similar to those done today by Naxos -- using smaller, less wellknown groups and orchestras, but still featuring high performance standards.

The LP pressings were also good to very good, although not up to the standards of modern LP's stamped from vinyl compositions such as Quiex. Given the very low price of the original LP's (I think most of the ones I bought back in the 1960's and 1970's cost from $3-5 each), they were a real bargain.

If you have a chance to buy a bunch of MHS LP's for a good price (not more than a couple of bucks each), I'd say get the whole batch and enjoy yourself!

I agree with Sdcambell. Also, many MHS releases were reissues from the Erato, Lyrita and Harmonia Mundi catalogs in quite good sound quality. Mastering was frequently done by Robert Ludwig (Sterling and Masterdisc), and while I assume the lacquers were cut from second generation tapes, not the original mastertapes, the sound quality of the reissues is often very good. Given the price, I never walk away from one of these MHS reissues unless I already have the original.

Buy them if they are in good condition. I picked up 100, or so, early MHS LP's, on the cheap, and enjoy them very much.

That said, I can purchase mint copies all day long, in my area, for 50 cents to $1 each, so don't pay too much.

I purchased the batch for $20-$40 (can't remember exactly) and considered it a bargain as they were all unplayed and mint. Lot's of spirited performances on this label, from my sampling.