Günter
Hänssler’s aggressive series of reissues on his Profil label
have been for the most part excellent and welcome re-acquaintances
with some old lost friends. Alas, there are some recordings
which deserve deletion, and this one is not worthy of resurrection.
Bruckner’s
Latin motets are some of the nineteenth century’s most lush
and harmonically delicious music for choirs. They are also
fraught with treachery, their relatively homophonic style masking
some fiendish intonation traps. Alas, this choir falls into
every last one of them with a vengeance.
Things
get off to a pretty good start with the Pange lingua and
the only real problem is a lack of homogeny in the tone of the
choir, and a pretty mundane interpretation. As we progress however,
the plain awful intonation becomes more and more frequent, especially
at cadence points. By the time we get to the Christus factus
est, and Os justi, the out of tune chords are simply
unbearable. Not to mention that when Bruckner asks for a fortissimo,
this choir tries to out-clang the Berlin Philharmonic. Consequently,
the sound is over-blown and the tone becomes harsh and strident.
Hans
Zanotelli never offers a truly well-shaped phrase, and he asks
for some bizarre articulations from his choir that are most
likely made in the name of clarity, but instead come across
as affected and jarring.
There
is one redeeming performance, however. The Inveni David
for men’s voices and four trombones is thrillingly sung and
the tone and blend of the men of the choir is outstanding. But
at less than two minutes, it is not worth the outlay for just
one work.
There
was surely some material that could have been found to fill
out the disc as well. At just under forty-six minutes, this
is obviously a straight re-issue of an LP. With outstanding
recordings of this music on the market by Philippe Herreweghe,
Frieder Bernius and Matthew Best, this disc has no place in
the catalog.
Kevin
Sutton
Oly Pfaff, (tenor) 
