MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
Crotchet

 

Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
Messa da Requiem (1874) [86:39]
Elizabeth Connell (soprano)
Ameral Gunson (mezzo)
Edmund Barham (tenor)
John Tomlinson (bass)
Brighton Festival Chorus and Royal Choral Society
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Owain Arwel Hughes
rec. live, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, March 1994
Gioacchino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Stabat Mater (1832/42) [51:40]
Pilar Lorengar (soprano)
Betty Allen (alto)
Josef Traxel (tenor)
Josef Greindl (bass)
Choir of St. Hedwig's Cathedral
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Karl Forster
rec. Grünewaldkirsche, Berlin, June 1960
EMI CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE 3759362 [66:33 + 71:46]

 

Experience Classicsonline


The coupling looks sensible - and certainly generous - enough, but the performances in question prove oddly matched.
 

The Verdi preserves a concert performance at St. Paul's Cathedral, perhaps one marking some ceremonial occasion, although no details of this are given. Nevertheless, since the one-shot concert was deemed sufficiently important for recorded documentation - with corporate sponsorship by J.P. Morgan and Company, no less - it was presumably of some moment. 

The cathedral acoustic is less of a liability than one might have feared. Soft string playing - the opening of the piece, say, or the tremolos that begin the Ingemisco and the Lux aeterna - doesn't come across clearly; if you boost the volume to compensate, the louder passages blast. A few climaxes turn opaque; the entries in the Sanctus fugue stand out, but their continuations don't. Otherwise, detail is surprisingly clear - the liquid textures of the Lux aeterna actually come through better than in some studio productions. The venue's vast ambient space certainly makes for a sense of occasion, though loud chords have an unusually long overhang. 

Owain Arwel Hughes leads an accomplished, warmly felt performance. Here and there, his treatment of this or that passage doesn't seem quite traditional, as with the deliberate pacing of the Kyrie after 8:24, for example. On the other hand, the slashing brasses and rhythmic thrust of the Dies irae will elicit no complaints from Italians - though its returns sound less distinctive - and he has an excellent feel for the undulating rhythmic shapes of the Quid sum miser. One wishes the conductor had held the general silences a bit longer - he tends to begin the next phrase before the long echo from the preceding one has died out, though I suppose that was almost inevitable. 

Among the soloists, I rather liked Edmund Barham's compact, ringy, neatly produced tenor, striking a good balance between Mediterranean ardor and British "cool".  The beginning of the Hostias, however, is gummy and tentative - perhaps he was having as much trouble hearing the soft tremolos in the cathedral as we are! John Tomlinson could still muster plenty of vocal clout in 1994 - though his extensive manipulation of the closed vowels is a sign of the problems to come - and his delivery is authoritative. 

Elizabeth Connell has many nice moments in the soprano part, though perhaps not enough of them. She knows how to turn into the upper voice with a pleasing, heady spin, but doesn't have reliable access to it, so the peaks of the Quid sum miser and the a cappella quartet, Pie Jesu Domine, betray strain. She also tends to back off the voice in the lowest phrases - perhaps trying to avoid vocal positions associated with her previous mezzo avatar - which not only undercuts critical cadences, but has implications for her support and stamina. And, indeed, she has trouble maintaining pitch in the final Requiem aeternam reprise. 

Ameral Gunson's narrow-bore mezzo lacks the sort of Italianate sweep and expansiveness that this music would seem to require. The upper range, as recorded, is clear and sopranoish; the lower notes, however, turn weak and diffuse, except when she reinforces them with a harsh if plausible chest mix, probably the better solution. She sings capably and cleanly, but sounds vaguely out of place, though less so than did Dame Janet Baker on Solti's RCA recording. 

The two massed choruses acquit themselves well, with only a few uncertain moments; the fugues in the Sanctus and the Libera me are competent and assured. All in all, this Requiem is not directly comparable to any of the studio recordings; it'll serve better as a memento than as a general library performance. 

At least Karl Forster's Rossini here finds itself in more congenial company than it did on an earlier Rouge et Noir twofer, entitled Stabat Mater, where it sat uncomfortably alongside Poulenc and Szymanowski. After the Verdi, though, its vivid early stereo sound is an ear-opener - if you're listening straight through, remember to turn down the volume! The conductor doesn't make the mistake of adopting a reverent, "devotional" style. This music is, basically, old-fashioned Italian opera, and Forster plays it accordingly: within a framework of disciplined musicality, he lets the hurdy-gurdy rhythms propel the phrases forward, and doesn't shrink from the indicated dynamic contrasts. 

In this solo team, the soprano stands out: Pilar Lorengar intones her lines clearly and firmly in a gleaming soprano that dominates the quartet passages. Her fast vibrato, which hadn't yet loosened and widened in 1960, adds intensity to her assured Inflammatus. Josef Traxel, too, sings creditably, although his bright tenor, built around closed Germanic vowels, may not be to everyone's taste. His forward placement throws the opening quartet out of kilter whenever he approaches the top of the staff; on the other hand, it makes for a secure Cujus animam. His A-flats aren't really free, but he gets some spin on the D-flat in the cadenza. 

The American mezzo, Betty Allen, had an extensive concert and recital career, but recorded little. Her solo lines in the Quis est homo duet sound parched and unresonant, but she sings the wider-ranging Fac ut portem handsomely, if with a touch of strain at the top, and her contribution to the ensembles is solid. 

The tonal blend of the St. Hedwig's choir is excellent, and their enunciation is surprisingly clear for such a large outfit. But they don't quite nail the tricky tuning in Eja, mater, fons amoris, not helped by Josef Greindl, whose wooden bass doesn't always "speak" dead center on the leaps. 

The Berlin Philharmonic's lustrous playing is a plus. The deep, churchly acoustic, unsurprisingly, turns opaque as the sonorities expand; strangely, however, it doesn't obscure the parts in the final fugue, presumably via some engineering sleight-of-hand. The bass is a bit boomy, as was frequently the case on pre-Philharmonie Berlin recordings. 

So - a souvenir Verdi, and an almost-right Rossini. Whether this constitutes a good investment at CfP prices is your decision. For the Rossini, however, it's worth hunting down the Schippers (Sony) version, with the New York Philharmonic and an impressive New York-based solo quartet.

Stephen Francis Vasta

 





 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.