When this disc was
first announced, I expected to be thrilled
by it, based upon my experience of Scandinavian
choirs plus the fact that it was a recent
digitally recorded Naxos production.
It fulfilled all of my initial expectations
with superb diction and pitch together
with a bloom on the sound, which I found
extremely attractive.
The performance comes
pretty close to making me prefer it
to my former first choice which was
the EMI set with Bulgarian forces. This
had the additional attraction of a vast
acoustic thus recreating the cathedral
environment in which this work thrives.
So far so good, and
the praise must go to the conductor
who has an instinctive feel for the
drama implicit in the music, and when
the dynamic rises, both the chorus and
recording handle the enormous ranges
perfectly.
The basses in the Finnish
Opera Chorus have more than adequate
power at the bottom end of their range
without the almost overpowering tone
of the Bulgarian forces. Indeed in some
ways this performance is preferable
because of the better than average overall
balance within the choir, making all
parts of Rachmaninov’s masterpiece clearly
audible.
What I find inexplicable
about this recording is the quality
of the singing of the contralto soloist,
a member of the choir itself, which
for me, totally ruins what otherwise
would have been a highly recommendable
version of this relatively popular unaccompanied
choral work. Whether it is the fault
of the sound engineer in boosting the
very pronounced wobble in her tone,
or it is, as I suspect, more to do with
her ability, or to put it more accurately
her inability to keep to a steady note.
This fault completely rules this performance
out, unless one uses the CD player selection
buttons to remove the movement (No.2)
where she is singing. The inexplicable
part is why the producer could think
that this disfigurement in the solo
singing was acceptable in what is after
all an important issue. Given the efforts
of the rest of the performers, this
is totally unacceptable and it ruins
what would have otherwise been a marvellous
issue.
As Naxos’s reputation
for first class issues improves it is
own-goals like this that destroy all
the good work their engineers and other
staff are doing in the development of
the label.
I am sorry to have
to greet the disc in this way. I am
sure that all involved were giving of
their best, and for the most part the
results are superb. However, we are
reviewing these issues to guide consumers
as to the high and low points of performance
and recording, and because of the contralto
soloist, this disc is un-recommendable.
John Phillips
Raissa Palmu (soprano), Erja Wimeri (contralto)
Eugen Antoni (tenor) 
