Beethoven - Missa Solemnis ? Mozart - Coronation Mass / Karajan
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Free Music Notes for Beethoven - Missa Solemnis ? Mozart - Coronation Mass / Karajan
Free Music Review: God help them
Hit: 2 Stars
Listening to this recording from the great Karajan was a large deception. The constant screaming from the chorus was so unbearable that I can not figure that there is people who can appreciate it. For those in search for a best interpreatation, I recommend the one with Philippe Herreweghe or John Eliot Gardiner. Free Music Review: spiritually edifying
Hit: 5 Stars
a beautiful uplifting piece of liturgical music from the great beethoven
buy it
Free Music Review: Top-notch
Hit: 5 Stars
A wonderful recording. This twosome is now available as a bargain two-fer, and the new transfer helps these older recordings immensely. I have always loved Karajan's interpretations of Beethoven's later works (as another reviewer said). His 9th's, the three I have heard (1962, 1977, 1984) are all excellent, but the 1962 version is the best of that bunch. Similarly with the Missa Solemnis, between this release and his later digital (1985) effort for DG, this (1966) version features an all-star quartet as well as the BPO at its performing peak. I cannot recommend these recordings strongly enough. And the "Coronation" Mass is fabulous too! Listen to his rendition of the 'Credo', simply wonderful!
This is my choice for this recording. The only real competition I see for the Missa Solemnis is the Solti/Berlin performance from 1992, which features better sound and faster pacing, but a similar overall "Beethovenian" feel.
Free Music Review: Karajan's Missa Solemnis times five
Hit: 4 Stars
Karajan made a specialty of this great and difficult work, which he recorded no less than five times. I don't believe in duplicating reviews here at Amazon, but I am posting this one under each performance--they range from a live radio broadcast in 1959 from the Salzburg Festival to a digital recording from 1985 in Berlin. In general the sound improves as time goes on, and except for the last recording, the soloists are uniformaly world class.
Since Karajan's readings rank among the best ever made, I'd like to give a brief rundown of each:
1959 Salzburg (EMI): In many ways this is the dream recording. The orchestra is the Vienna Phil, the chorus the Vienna Singverein, Karajan's favorite--they appear in all his recordings. The solo quartet captures Leontyne Price in her prime--her glorious soprano is incomparable in this part. Christa Ludwig, Nicolai Gedda, and Nicola Zaccaria join Price in a passionate, involved performance that brings more excitement and commitment than any other. The big downside is the tubby mono sound--you are aware of listening to a gigantic work through your home radio. If you can adjust your ears and listen through the sound, as it were, this was obviously a great event.
1960 Philharmonia (Testament): This EMI commercial recording came out originally in mono, only later in muffled stereo. It's been cleaned up by Testament for reissue, but the chorus is still fairly murky and distant. Otherwise, this is a deeply satisfying performance, the second best of the five in my opinion. The solo quartet is marked by actually singing, not shouting, and the four voices blend beautifully, which only makes sense, because Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, and Gedda had sung together for years on EMI. They would go on to make a superlative Verdi Requiem under Giulini. The bass again is Nicola Zaccaria, another old hand at EMI but not quite up to the other three. Karajan's conducting lacks the fiery intensity of the live Salzburg performance from the year before. Eerything is relative, though. This is still a strong entry, commanding in every way.
1966 Berlin (DG): From here to the end all recordings are with the Berlin Phil. This one came out nose to nose with the famed Klemperer set from London (EMI), and on the whole Klemperer is superior, thanks to somewhat clearer sound and an unsurpassed chorus trained by Wilhelm Pitz. Karajan's quartet is once again stellar: Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, Fritz Wunderlich, and Walter Berry. Wunderlich was the greatest lyric tenor in Germany and sounds wonderful. I don't care for Janowitz's piping, hooty soprano, which sounds more like a woodwind instrument than a fully expressive voice, but I concede that I am in the minority. The sonics are a bit glaring, and they get ocngested in the massed passages with chorus and orchestra. DG may have improved the sound in the 1996 reissue on a bargain two-fer; I haven't heard it, although there's no doubt this recording is at times uncomfortably shrill.
1975 Berlin (EMI): Karajan has proceeded with at least one new Missa Solemnis per decade. This recording features another stellar quartet, with Janowitz held over from the DG set and sounding excactly the same. She is joined by Peter Schreier, Agnes Baltsa, and Jose Van Dam. All except Schreier were Karajan favorites at the time. They sing very well, even though one hears a noticeable drop from the earlier quartets. The recorded sound here is just as congested in tuttis as on the DG set. In general the performance shows no advance on earlier readings and in my opinion is the most negligible of the five.
1985 Berlin (DG) : For the first time one notices a leap forward in sound quality, thanks to digital multi-miking. From the outset there's more orchestral detail, cleaner separation of voices, and good highlighting of the vocal quartet. The engineers weren't stuck with a single microphone placement, which never could capture chorus, orchestra, and soloists satisfactorily. Unfortunately, when the big tuttis come in the Gloria, the chorus and orchestra become just as congested as before. This is due to Karajan's insistence on using a very large chorus; it always muddies when the music gets very loud. Over the years Karajan didn't drastically change his approach to the Missa Solemnis, and since this 1985 recording has the best sound, one wishes it could be recommended as the best document. It is badly let down, however, by the quartet, consisting of two unknown women--Lella Cuberli and Trudeliese Schmidt--who aren't exactly great discoveries, along with the light-voiced tenor Vinson Cole and a dry, aging Jose Van Dam.
With enough time and space, one could detail hundreds of differences between these performances. In 1985, for example, the Gloria shoots out at rocket speed compared to the other four performances. But this way madness lies. For me it's enough to know that all but the 1985 are great performances, the sound is about even between 1966 and 1975, with 1960 in serviceable stereo, while the live 1959 Salzburg must be counted one of those events that no one will ever forget who was fortunate enough to be present.
Free Music Review: A Gross(e) Mess(e)!
Hit: 1 Stars
I remember listening to this recording at 14 and understanding even then that this was absolutely one of the worst performances of any work I've heard! Now, 11 years later, I still lament the fact that I learned this work primarily through this recording (and the Davis/LSO recording, not much better). At that point, because of this I thought performances of this work were SUPPOSED to be a bunch of people screaming at the top of their lungs and a big jumble of instruments not being played together correctly in time. Then when I was old enough to be able to read the score I realized that this recording was a disaster in so many ways, as it still sticks out in my mind today.
Sometimes I still think about this recording and laugh. I have once or twice entertained the notion of buying this recording just so I could scoff at it, and to gain a better apprecation for the truly great recordings that are out there (GARDINER, Solti/Berlin, Toscanini)
Didn't any of you notice that the orchestra and the chorus are rarely able to play together? They seem to be playing on two different planets... and it just ends up sounding like a murky, muddied mess. What happened with getting it all together at the "Et resurrexit/Et ascendit?" Or what about the Quoniam? It seems Karajan overlooked the "Allegro" in "Allegro Maestoso," and just trudged along with sick sounding tenors and violins that can't outdo each other enough in allargando. As it is, there isn't one time in the whole piece where Karajan keeps a steady tempo.
And the tone of the chorus -- ah, the chorus! How truly irritating! When I first heard "Qui sedes ad dexteram patris," I went straightway to an encyclopedia to check if there had been any casualties -- It truly sounded as if the concert hall had collapsed!
I guess this was the style back in Karajan's day in the early 60's, and I'm utterly thankful that I didn't have to live through those times. Now, I fully realize that there were many great conductors doing wonderful things during that period. I'm a large fan of Fruhbeck de Burgos, as I have worked with him many times, as well as a great admirer of Solti, Levine and Boulez. I guess that as a Generation Xer (or whatever we twentysomethings are called nowadays), what we envision when we think of the 50's and 60's is the demigod Karajan, and all his big, over-the-top glory. Frankly, I have never had any use for his conducting... I don't understand it. I don't understand the big "conductor" pretenses -- the serious facial expressions, the grandiose tempi and the use of heavy orchestral sonorities that charcaterize him. I guess I belong to a generation of musicians that was taught that the composer has already incorporated the correct interpretation into the score, and that a clear and precise reading by conductor and musicians draws that out, not that the conductor comes to the score with all his crazy "interpretive" ideas and plays it in a way that might have been fashionable for 1960's Europe, but is more likely nothing the composer would even recognize as his own work. (Not to jab at Beethoven's obvious auditory impairment)
I have been spoiled for the last 10 years by the wonderful recording done by John Eliot Gardiner and his forces! I can't help but be devoted to this recording. The period instruments movement has been the movement of my generation, and I believe it can arguably be considered one of the most successful movements in modern music history. Thank goodness there are folks like John Eliot Gardiner, Trevor Pinnock and Marc Minkowski on that bandwagon, because if left in the wrong hands, I realize it had the potential to fail miserably. We all owe John Eliot Gardiner a debt of gratitude for his superb, enlightened performances, especially of Bach, Handel and Beethoven, but even of Holst and Kurt Weill!
As for you, Karajan, you were an enigmatic man... one that I admittedly will never understand. But now you've gone on and we have your baffling recordings to remember you by. They may be unfathomable, but they sure keep me thankful for the strides we've made in performance today!
Oh yes, I almost forgot... the only thing that saves this recording is the late Fritz Wunderlich; no other like him, really!