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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hair raising, May 13, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Janacek: Glagolitic Mass / Sinfonietta (Audio CD)
I have to say, I've heard most of the major recordings of these 2 works, and I find this by far the most exciting. Tilson-Thomas really let the LSO off the lead, even to the extent of letting the trumpets in the last bar of the Sinfonietta play up the octave. They were obviously having the time of their lives. Some of the Tempos are a bit ambiguous, but with such exquisite wind playing, and powerful brass (all the top London players were on these sessions), who cares! The sound engineering is marvellous too, recorded in a wonderful old church in London, the antiphional qualities of the Sinfonietta really work. Just to add the penultimate organ movement in the Mass was also performed by St Paul's Cathedral's fabulous organist. A must have for those who appreciate the virtuoso qualities of these works.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very assured, technically and interpretatively, June 24, 2010
This review is from: Janacek: Glagolitic Mass / Sinfonietta (Audio CD)
This is not music that I naturally warm to but I can, with repeated hearings, understand its appeal. It's a big splurge of sound performed by forces more than up to the job, recorded in a generous church acoustic which occasionally lets detail become obscured but certainly suits Tilson Thomas's grand, spacious interpretation. I can imagine other interpreters finding more of the beast in this wild music; Tilson Thomas is best in the more lyrical passages and could let rip more, but it is a monumental, very well controlled account Benacková is a wholly idiomatic soprano soloist who manages to sound fervent without screaming; Russian bass Anatoly Kocherga is a bit soft-grained, but mezzo Felicity Palmer controls her wide vibrato well to sing with conviction; she sounds uncannily like Elena Obratsova here - no bad thing in a work with so Slavic a heritage. The biggest vocal flaw is the sometimes strained and invariably uningratiating tenor of Gary Lakes; his first entry made me look around, trying to find the source of the intrusive bleat. Otherwise, artistic standards are high and the Czech sounds pretty authentic to my untrained ears. The soft sections, such as at the end of the Agnus Dei, are especially poised and delicate. The organ solo by John Scott is aptly bonkers. This recording, made in 1992 and in excellent sound, is now available very cheaply in the Sony Essential Classics series. It is so consistently satisfying that it could easily be your first choice for this unique, vibrant, atavistic work, which occasionally echoes Stravinsky and Bartok but is essentially sui generis. A generous bonus is provided in the form of the inevitable "Sinfonietta", whose opening pins back your ears with the fourteen London trumpets playing with terrifc technical skill and impeccable intonation. Tilson Thomas seems to have the measure of these works and displays a mastery in marshalling the large forces required and surmounting the rhythmical complexities which could so easily result in a fragmented mess. Even though I admire this music more than I have affection for it, I shall keep coming back to this disc, the finest thing I know in Tilson Thomas's output.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not the wildest Mass on records, but extremely well performed and recorded, February 7, 2009
This review is from: Janacek: Glagolitic Mass / Sinfonietta (Audio CD)
Janacek's Glagolitic Mass has gathered quite a few recordings since the pioneering days of Rafael Kubelik on DG in the Sixties, but the work hasn't gotten easier to perform or record. It's fiendish on both counts, and before one speaks of interpretation, it's the refinement of Tilson Thomas's 1990 recording that stands out. I hadn't known of the existence of this CD, but I bought it knowing that MTT can manage large forces, and Sony's 20-bit "high definition" engineering sounded promising. On both scores this is a superior effort, with lovely, wide-ranging sound and impeccable ensemble from the London Sym., their magnificent chorus, and four risk-taking vocal soloists (recorded very close up, by the way). Only soprano Gabriele Benackova is a native Czech, but Janacek's vocal writing lies so high that pronunciation isn't much of a factor, not to meniton that the language is Old Chruch Slavonic. In the end, though, it's the interpretation that matters most, and here MTT may be too restrained for someone used to hearing this work as a rough barbaric yawp -- little of that is in evidence in a reading that is a little churchy for what the composer famously called an atheist's Mass. But MTT catches the right celebratory spirit -- he's never dull or pompous -- and here and there there's a sense of abandon in the brass section. The organ soloist is accomplished but not quite berserk enough. The instrument itself is a grand monster, just what's needed. When all the ingredients are totted up, this is an outstanding recording. The Sinfonietta has become the catch-all filler for any CD of orchestral Janacek, but that doesn't make it less a masterpiece. The 14 tumbling trumpets in the opening fanfare are nearly impossible to get right -- how do you find enough highly skilled trumpeters who can play in tune? LOndon provides them, however, so it's real shame that the brass are placed so far back -- te loss of impact is considerable. That said, MTT gives a wild and free performance that is one of the best I've ever heard.
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