Oratorios
St Paul, Op.36 (1834-36)
María Cristina Kiehr (soprano); Werner Güra (tenor); Michael Volle (bass); Patrick Pobeschin; Adolph Seidel (bass); Sigrun Maria Bornträger (alto)
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen; Kammerchor Stuttgart/Frieder Bernius
Elijah, Op.70 (1846)
Letizia Scherrer (soprano); María Cristina Kiehr (soprano); Renée Morloc (contralto); Werner Güra (tenor); Michael Volle (bass)
Klassiche Philharmonie Stuttgart; Kammerchor Stuttgart/Frieder Bernius
Christus, Op.97 (1844-47; torso)
Dorothea Rieger (soprano); Christoph Prégardien (tenor); Johannes-Chr. Happel (baritone); Cornelius Hauptmann (bass)
Mitglieder der Bamberger Symphoniker; Kammerchor Stuttgart/Frieder Bernius
rec. September 2005, Forum Ludwigsburg (St Paul); January 2007, Evangelische Stadkirche, Schwaigern (Elijah); May 1987, Südwest-Tonstudio, Stuttgart (Christus)
German texts and English translations
CARUS 83.021 [4 CDs: 70:02 + 74:16 + 65:23 + 63:22]
Carus has very sensibly decided to collate the two main oratorio
recordings - St Paul and Elijah - and add the Christus
torso to form a neat 4-CD box. None of the performances are new.
In fact Christus was recorded as long ago as 1987. The better-known
oratorios are much more recent, given that St Paul dates
from 2005, and Elias (or Elijah in English)from
2007.
Interesting though this may or may not be, it would matter very
little if the performances were not so very fine. Once again Frieder
Bernius proves something of an undersung master. I really do think
- and I in no way wish to suggest that it’s an obscure label,
when clearly it isn’t - but that if Bernius recorded for a
bigger or sexier company than Carus he would be something of a household
name, rather than a connoisseur’s or collector’s choice.
I’ve seldom heard him put a foot wrong in the studio or in
live recordings. He has a wide range of musical interests and cultivates
strong ensemble discipline, but a spontaneous sounding freedom with
his chosen bands and choirs. Why don’t more people know his
name?
Those who do can be grateful, in fact, that he and Carus work so
harmoniously and intelligently together. This St Paul is
first-class in every way. Listening to the performance you do wonder
whether it’s not superior to Elijah - I think it is,
if such things matter - or whether it’s the superiority of
the conducting and singing that transports one into thinking so.
The orchestral playing is richly sensitive, the Bachian chorale
allusions are adeptly pointed but not fetishized, and the choral
forces are crisp, clear and rhythmically alive. With bright brass
tone, and excellent percussion the music’s orchestral tapestries
- embracing both drama and consolation - come over expertly. Maria
Christina Kiehr, Werner Güra and Michael Volle are the three
vocal soloists - Kiehr, a soprano, takes the solo ‘But the
Lord is mindful’ and very well too, though contraltos would
doubtless be looking on greedily, were the contralto voice not now
almost extinct. With an excellent balance, this is an admirable
contribution to St Paul on disc, one of the very best you’ll
find anywhere.
These virtues are reprised in Elijah, where the vehemence
and drama that coursed through St Paul are even more focused
and concentrated into elemental moments. To these Bernius responds
with vital imagination, sure pacing and a careful balance between
solo voices and orchestra. There are no ‘stand and deliver’
solos, such as used to be the case in the more Edwardian recordings
of the Greatest Hits from the oratorio - ‘Lord God of Abraham’,
I suppose, most obviously. Anglophones accustomed to English-language
performances may wish to stick with their chosen few. This Bernius
recording ensures that the score is seamlessly logical and wholly
musical and once again he has the soloists to carry through his
vision - Letizia Scherrer and Renée Morloc join the singers
already cited above. None has an outsize delivery; none overbalances
his colleagues, either through the use of obtrusive vibrato or stylistic
incongruity. There is a shared purpose, determined, I’m sure,
by Bernius himself.
Christus is a twenty-minute torso but there is considerable
nobility in what is there, and we have some truly superior singing,
in particular, from Dorothea Rieger and Christoph Prégardien.
If you want the two main oratorios in a handy set, then Bernius
offers a perfect solution. Elijah has a long history on disc
and no one performance offers everything. That said, Bernius offers
more than almost everyone. This is a terrific box, and testimony
to the virtues of hard work, application, imagination and individual
and corporate excellence. Lucky Stuttgart.
Jonathan Woolf
Previous
review: Dominy Clements
Support
us financially by purchasing this disc from |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |