Customer Reviews

Berlioz: Requiem ~ Edison / Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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My first contact with Berlioz «Grande Messe des Morts» was some twenty years ago, in an EMI/Andel LP with the recording of Louis Frémeaux conducting the City od Birminghan Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Robert Terar as the tenor soloist. Frémaux conducted the work with spiritual contemplation and quitness, but giving power to the apocaliptical passages of Dies irae and Tuba mirum and expressive tenseness in Lacrymosa. That became my concetion of Berlioz Requiem. My old LP become spoiled and recently, one day, I purchased the bargain Naxos CD of Berlioz Requiem with Noel Edison conducting The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir and the Elora Festival Orchestra. The tempo was slightly faster than Frémeaux, not too much, but I find the choral singing vivid and present, yet smooth and with musical texturas quite clear, All the perfomance offered moments of great and fine beauty. However the orchestral playng is pale and the recorded sound tdoes not show the power os the drums in Tuba mirum. The sound of the brass chords is not too strong as in Sir Collin Davis on Philips or Robert Shaw on Telarc, but is acceptable. I know several fersions of this Requiem, but Noel Edison offers a true choral treatment of the work, as Louis Frémaus did in the mid 70's. The choral singig is full and warm, specially in the more polyphonic passages, sounding like 16th Century a cappella polyphony. I do not not know any other modern full price digital version with this mystical treatment of the chorus, as Noel Edison does. The only disapointment is the orchetral weekness in Tuba mirum but this is a minor detail compensated by the the fine interpretation troughout the choral singing. Buy this two disc set, even if you have other versions of the Requiem, because Edison offers a special and interesting reading of this Berlioz masterpiece.

Probably the grandest, loudest, and most exciting piece of state religious music ever composed, this choral piece with orchestra also has wonderful moments of piety following the fear and thunder of its opening sections. Before I tell you why I like it, let me mention a mistake I made. Because it is music composed for a vast church I naturally set my playback to a 'Cathedral' sound field. Vast mistake, for this disc is already recorded in one. Everything was distant and recessed, low impact, a vast disappointment compared to the Shaw version that has sent thrills through me for years. The moment I switched to an ordinary 'Hall' effect, the music blossomed forth overwhelmingly to grasp me with its tense opening Kyrie and devastating Dies Irae.

The first 5 sections of the requiem mass are monstrous in their force and pathos, opening with ominous hushed chords uttered by low trombones and high flutes, spanning the looming abyss between earth and heaven that this requiem will seek to close. After one of the longest windups in music (far more thrilling than Ravel's Bolero) the very earth shudders and roars in the Dies Irae and seems to break open in the Tuba mirum, a great volcanic blast from 4 brass bands, and unnumbered tympani drums tuned across a full octave, in a howl for the French war dead of 1830. On disc, however, the bands do not truly "surround" you with the intended shocking sound issuing live from the 4 corners of the cathedral. Naxos is rumored to have some 5.1 channel discs (true surround sound and DEEP bass), but this music, which truly cries out for it, is not on one of those.

The last 5 sections gradually turn towards pity on a human scale, typified by the tenor soloist in the Sanctus, filling the aural abyss and bringing the promise of relief and comfort to us. I find many beautiful passages in this music, rounding off the range of emotions fit for an official memorial and captured so effectively by Berlioz, the quintessential passionate Romantic (see Jacques Barzun's book, Berlioz and His Century).

The musical forces required for this colossal piece are so great you are unlikely ever to hear it live. I prefer the sweep and impact of Shaw's version on a Telarc disc (just listen to their famous mad drums!), and its two filler pieces, but you can't beat Naxos's price for this very good performance. Naxos is inexpensive, not cheap. I'd take it as one of my desert island discs. Text and very short notes are included, packaged in a cleverly compact 2-CD jewel box.

This budget recording by Naxos is in the top five of all available recording of this piece. Only the performances by Robert Shaw and Colin Davis are clearly superior to this one. However, anyone who wants this amazing choral work for a very ideal price will not disappointed. The conductor has a good sense of tempo, and the tenor is very good. In fact, he greatly betters the soloists on the Shaw and Davis recordings. This work balances between the grandious and the intimate. Some movements are huge and enormous, and others are quiet and contemplative. This is a highly recommended piece of choral music.

We are so sued to being assualted by the Berkioz Requiem as a sonic blockbuster--an impression left by the composer himself--that's it's easy to overlook its spiritual value. Of the five versions I already own, none every struck me as poetic or deeply moving. This one does. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir must be one of the greatest amateur choruses in the wolrd. They not only blend beautifully and have professional ensemble, but they sound genuinely reverent. The openingRequiem et Kyrie caught me by surprise with its simple, touching emotion.

By comparison, Noel Edison and the Elora Festival Orchestra can't vie with the like of the Berlin Phil. for James Levine (DG) or the London Sym. for Colin Davis in his first recording of the Requiem (Philips), but the conductor is especialy sensitive to the spiritual value of this music, and that counts for a lot. In addition, the young Michael Schade, captured here in 1999, would go on to a big career in Europe; he is quite excellent, and Naxos's sonics are quite good, if not up to the best standard. This Berlioz Requiem deserves top honors in a very crowded field of big names.

The chorus and orchestra sound fine. The only problem I have with this recording is that most of the tempi are excruciatingly slow and the interpretation too refined. Other reviewers have pointed out the spirituality of this recording. I am of the school that the composer's intentions are more important than the conductor's. The Requiem has many contemplative moments, but foremost it is a work of bombast and contrasts, and it is these contrasts that make the spiritual moments more exciting. Those contrasts were missing, and for that reason the interpretation was on the blah side. Ironically, the only part of this recording that was not too slow was the Lacrymosa, and that seemed too fast.

Berlioz' Requiem is a wonderful work from the very pinnacle of Romantic, large-scale choral production pieces. It requires so many musicians that is difficult to perform. This version is quite good, nicely recorded, and very clearly conducted. A very good price makes this recording worth addding to your collection.

I have listened twice and find this performance with a deep religious feeling.

I strongly recommend to listen to it in a quiet afternoon

Requiem's allow to look into thge soul of the artist, and Berlioz is no exception.

An older friend is in the search for the Requiem for his funeral,and two years ago I laughed, alone of course, at this idea. Now I belive he is right, and I am 42 and healthy.

The performance is very good as well as the recording