Customer Reviews

Bruckner: Masses; Te Deum

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

 

 

Matthew Best does wonderful things in his set of Bruckner's Choral works.

His attention to detail is noticable, and his emotional commitment. The set has great liner notes and translations whereas the Rilling set has limited notes and not translations.

I find that his rendering of Mass No.3 is unsurpassed, I am always finding new things when I re-listen to it! It is as spiritual as it is powerful.

My only criticism of the set is the sound quality. The sound is mostly dim and neutral...so you might have to turn up the volume a bit.

I would rank Jochum's set to be on the same level as the Matthew Best set.

I must thank the folks at the Rough Guide for their recommendation of this recording because of all the extras as well at the committed performances from all involved. Even though I have not heard the other recordings, I cannot imagine that they could be any better than this. Bruckner's music is imbued with religious mysticism. Bruckner believed that even his symphonies were celebrating his Roman Catholic God and so one might expect him to compose masses.
This set begins with the Te Deum a song praising God which Bruckner believed was his finest composition and in my opinion it is strong enough to stand with the sacred vocal works of all time. Scored for four soloist , choir, organ and orchestra using mostly homophonic choral writing but later develops into a vast double final fugue. The Te Deum is compelling from beginning to end.

Mass Number one is the only thing on these discs that I most likely would never listen to again because it pales in comparison with the other works especially the other masses. This mass is for the same forces as the Te Deum and seems to parallel his symphonies in its construction.
According to the notes Bruckner composed his second mass using wind instruments when a sect of Christians complained about the use of orchestra to accompany masses in church. What a loss it might have been if Bruckner has not composed the mass the way he did. It is one of the best masses I have ever heard although the combination sounds so forbidding it is the most sublime of the masses which is brought to bear immediately in the opening Kyrie which is mostly unaccompanied except for the intermittent sounding of trumpet and horns. The Gloria and credo are much faster but are filled with much complexity . It is in the sanctus where Bruckner quotes Palestrina's Missa brevis and in the masses shortest section is full of hopeful expectation. The gentle benedictus is notable for it's burst on the Hosanna in excelcis. The notes describe this mass as the deepest and subtlest of Bruckner's masses. CD 2 contains two instrumental piece and a Libera me for choir, trombones and double bass which is quite beautiful.

Mass number 3 is composed with soloists, chorus and large orchestra is the longest of Buckner's masses and the sect must have hated it but the is much to love . My favorite parts include the bass soloist quoting the adagio from the second symphony the soprano accompanied by solo violin in the Kyrie and the Gloria and credo which occupy the bulk of the mass both ending up in massive fugue. The third disc also contains a setting of psalm 150.
I believe that mass 2 and 3 and the Te Deum belong in the collection of all classical music lovers because they are needed to appreciate the genius of Anton Bruckner.
Please excuse typos, I have a neurological disease.

I recently got this set, and all the performances are excellent, even exquisite. But there is also a potential element of quite hilarious divine comedy lurking in the experience of the works with these forces. In every detail these readings somehow shake-off the dramatic Germanness and ponderous reflection that is so much a part of Bruckner's genius. In its place is a very unlikely and sunny aesthetic. One is almost tempted to say that somehow Matthew Best gets his singers to improbably contour the works with "good English cheer", except the effect is more vast than that, and well-done by the way. One will have resort to riddles to lay it bare: Thus it is would be something like, this is how Delius' Mass of Life would sound if it actually contained any profound music. But the more likely etiology for the excellent eisegesis here is a sort of reading of Bruckner as some sort of musical evocation of a distant Leibnizian-Wolffian universe of optimism. Well, whatever, this Monad enjoys it thorughly.