Customer Reviews

Carmina Burana

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

 

 

I think I have heard one too many of the many recordings of Orff's <Carmina Burana> from the very first mono recording for which the composer wrote a plea not to purchase any unauthorized recording to a budget version that sounds as if it were recorded inside of a swimming pool. My favorite has remained the Angel recording with Burgos on the podium; but I can find room in my collection for the 1969 version with Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, now available with remastering on BMG (09026-63590-2).

Soloists Evelyn Mandac, Stanley Kolk, and Sherrill Milnes, backed up by the New England Conservatory Chorus and Children's Chorus, all sound just fine. The tempos are generally slow and the final syllables of the Abbot's song are nsot delivered with the expected force; but in general this is a good version to have until the Burgos is once more available.

Ozawa's Carmina is perfectly OK, involved chorus, good soloists perhaps not at their best, lovely sound. But do we need this? Doesn't RCA have something better and more generous to reissue, or is it just making hay?

Overall, the performance is loud and drab at the same time, the chorus a little lispy (give 'em some water!), the orchestra a little bored, uninvolved. This performance would be fine as a routine subscription concert offering for a Saturday afternoon, but not something to be perpetuated on disk.

On down the road and a decade earlier, Fritz Mahler and the Hartford Symphony did a fun and committed performance for Vanguard that outdoes this after about 20 bars. The vocal quartet is a great ensemble and the chorus and orchestra involved to the hilt. Collectors are leagues better off with it.

Or there's Dorati's thrilling, dramatic traversal and Stokowski's lewd and sumptuous one that throws decorum to the wind and gets down to the mood and music. Fruhbeck, Jochum, and Smetacek are other outstanding, musical, committed offerings with better soloists and production values.

We don't need this, RCA. Yank it from the catalog and reissue some other contemporary music performances (Sessions, Fine, Sommer, Mennin, Martinon, Persechetti, Varese) that you've done that we really need and want.

Ozawa is probably known to be energetic and exciting. And the music's quick part, including 'O Fortuna', probably shows an example. I had to admit, I only like his performance on rather harsh music, such as the Infernal Dance from Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, and some savage dances from The Rite of Spring. I don't think he's very good on rather slow or soft music. The 'O Fortuna' is probably the only music you'll ever need. But if you want to buy the whole music, and don't care how good a performance is, (I didn't say Ozawa is totally bad on music overall), try this CD. You will enjoy Ozawa's enthusiastic excitement and energy in 'O Fortuna'; especially the winds, the brass, and mainly, the choir. Overall, this CD is OK. But the 'O Fortuna' is outrageously great!

To paraphrase, this 1969 Boston Sym."Carmina" is FAR preferable to Ozawa's much later performance with the Berlin Philharmonic on Philips. In short, this is THE "Carmina" to get!