Recording Pioneer

Just 23 years old when she recruited the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a recording contract in 1950, Wilma Cozart Fine went on to create hundreds of orchestral albums that set the standard for classical-music recording for decades.

Mrs. Fine, who died Sept. 21 at the age of 82, led Mercury Records' classical-music recording business in the 1950s and 1960s, at a time when senior female executives in the industry were rare. She initiated and produced the label's "Living Presence" series that ultimately grew to a catalog of more than 400 classical recordings.

Despite more than half a century of technical innovation since Mrs. Fine's first recordings, her work is still considered exceptional for the clarity and realism of its sound.

The Mercury catalog included contemporary composers as well as music of the Civil War, made with period instruments and re-enacted battle sounds recorded at Gettysburg.