Customer Reviews

Berlioz: Requiem [Hybrid SACD]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This recording of the Berlioz Requiem (Grande Messe des Morts)

is still after more than Fourty years, one of the best. The tenor

soloist Leopold Simoneu has yet to be bettered in the Sanctus

part, While the New England Conservitory Chorus may not be the

best one for this music they do at least make a good effort. The

Boston Symphony delivers a majestic performance of the music and

Charles Munch manages to keep the whole thing running like a

well oiled watch. Which is saying something in a large work such

as this. RCA released a recording with the BSO under Ozawa with

Vinson Cole and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus as a One disc

item, while it was a fair effort, it cannot begin to hold a

candle to this classic RCA RED SEAL recording. The only

recording I have heard that comes close to it is the one that

Sir Colin Davis recorded for Phillips as part of his Berlioz

Cycle. This recording is very much a classic and a clear first

choice.

This has been hailed as a great performance for more than four decades.

It is also a remarkable recording, a true testament to the genius of the late, great Lewis Layton, RCA's Recording Engineer extraordinaire!

This is one of those wonderful occasions where new technology works to show us just how great prior technology really was.

As for the performance, Charles Munch had the common good sense to allow Berlioz' vision to speak for itself. This is a Requiem that doesn't ask for redemption. It screams for it! It demands atonement. It pleads for salvation.

There are other wonderful recordings of Berlioz' Requiem. The Robert Shaw comes to mind as one in which the conductor understands what Berlioz was about.

However, there is no other recording of this amazing, illusive, demanding and unique work that can lay claim to this: Charles Munch and The Boston Symphony Orchestra's performance is, in a word, exhilarating.

Berlioz thought big for his Mass: "The number [of performers] indicated is only relative. If space permit, the chorus may be doubled or tripled, and the orchestra be proportionally increased. But in the event of an exceptionally large chorus, say 700 to 800 voices, the entire chorus should only be used for the Dies Irae, the Tuba Mirum, and the Lacrymosa, the rest of the movements being restricted to 400 voices." I've performed the work as a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. We did not number 400, but I can attest to the fact that the house was crammed with 16 timpani, 10 pairs of cymbals, four brass choirs, and a partridge... Given that no recording can do this work justice, why not go with the one that's the most musically sublime? In my opinion, it pretty much takes a French musician to convey the style- Munch was Alsatian, close enough. There's only one brief solo in the piece, the Sanctus, it's stratospheric and most tenors either belt it or cheat by singing falsetto. Tenor Leopold Simoneau managed to shape every phrase perfectly- just achingly beautiful. The weakness on the recording is the New England Conservatory chorus. The tenor line is soaring and prominent throughout, and this tenor section is stretched (pun intended) beyond their limitations. Still, the Chorus is more than adequate and gets the message out. (I also highly recommend the Solti/CSO recording of Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust.)

I agree with the previous reviewers about both sound and performance. This recording is miraculous, even in CD sound. I do not own a SACD player yet, but this disk tempts me to get one.
I was a bit puzzled about Amazon's price--I bought it in a major retail store as a twoer with a factory sticker to that effect, suggesting that BMG's price is $11.99 for both disks. Even at 11.99 per disk, though, it's still a bargain.

Leopold Simoneau's performance, that of the orchestra and M. Munch's are superlative. RCA's then recording efforts were exemplary for its day. Otherwise, this recording has seen its day. The main drawback is the chorus was always mediocre and that is a genuinely damaging in a piece that is principally choral. I congratulate reviewer Mr. Kempster for quite correctly against the very conventional current in this series of reviews. More satisfying interpretations have come to light since then, even in mono! (I can think of a great one under Dmitri Mitropoulos and Vienna forces available on Orfeo: an emotionally searing reading with a strong, professional chorus). I will also draw your attention to the forthcoming one from Poland with Paul McCreesh and splendid forces, including a "real" chorus; a very moving performance I purchased in England..... it will be available here at the end of the month or early November. In addition, the historically splendid Colin Davis, with the London Symphony Orch., recorded at Westminster Cathedral has now been reissued (Pentatone label) in the surround sound (quadraphonic, now SACD) in which it was originally recorded but never published by Philips. It is a marvel..... the byzantine spaces of the church truly capture Berlioz's use of space (for those who do not know, Westminster Cathedral, not to be confused with the Abbey, is the Catholic cathedral in London); there is fire and solemnity as well as comforting spirituality in the Davis reading which now on Pentatone sounds much better than it ever did. So we bow in gratitude to Munch, Simoneu and the BSO for a great pioneering effort, but a great deal of water has passed under that bridge. Robert Shaw's effort, elsewhere praised, also pales in all departments with what else is out there. I am old enough to know how difficult it is to demote cherished recordings which shaped our understanding of a piece. Had Munch had a better choir, maybe it would have fared better over time; he certainly had a great tenor solo. As it is, as a recording this is not comparable with recorded classics such as Fischer's Bach or Schnabel's Beethoven. That does not diminish the gratitude with which one holds it. Newcomers to the piece are best advised to look elsewhere, and I recommend Davis on Pentatone (particularly if you have SACD) and Paul McCreesh on their own private label, I believe distirbuted by Signum: it is already for pre-order in Amazon. The Mitropoulos on Orfeo is a great interpretation, extremely moving, but with the sonic limitations, even of good quality mono, which may not be desirable in a first choice.

Addendum: All Munch, indeed all Boston Symphony Orchestra recordings involving chorus, regardless of conductor, seem hampered by less than optimal choral contributions. Fritz Reiner in Chicago got Margaret Hillis to set up what became a permanent, marvelous chorus for his magnificent band; one wonders why someone hasn't done so for the BSO. It may help that Chicago has a resident opera company of significance.

We need to temper the glowing reviews here. This is an old recording. It sounds like an old recording. The worst part is that is the chorus is very, very ordinary, and they sing with poor tone and a very much note-for-note style of non-legato delivery that is dull at best (aggravating more often than not). No clue why some find these "living presence" recordings good. Much as people may like to fool themselves, general performing standards really HAVE moved on since then, as have recording standards. Even SACD can't save this. Move on.