Customer Reviews

Mozart: Exsultate, Jubilate, K. 165; Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339; Kyrie in D minor, K. 341; Ave verum corpus, K. 618

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I put this on this morning while I was cleaning and had to stop so I could just listen. This is some of the most beautiful music you can imagine and done wonderfully by Colin Davis, Kiri Te Kanawa, etc. Each section is beautiful, but when you listen to the whole Vespers (tracks 1-6) it is overwhelming. And if you've never heard the Ave Verum Corpus or the Exsultate Jubilate (with the famous Mozart "Allelujah") you are in for a treat. Mozart expresses everything about being human--our hopes, our sadness, our joy. If everyone could hear this music, the world would be a better place. That may sound like a bit much and I'm always hesitant to overstate how much I like something, but you can't overstate how great this music is.

It has been said that all the great composers spent their lives trying to reach heaven, but that Mozart came from there. Well, in the "Vesperae Solennes De Confessore", Mozart takes the liberty of escorting us there. And as we sublunars stand inside, privileged, under that magnificent vault listening to the music of the heavenly spheres - his music! - we are increasingly rendered awestruck and by the end of "Laudate pueri", mute as well. Understanding our condition, he then leads us to a small anteroom of heaven to listen to a choir of angels sing the "Laudate Dominum" before escorting us back through the gates to the music of the "Magnificat". Davis and Te Kanawa take us on this journey. It is a magnificent recording!

The original vinyl issue of this album was part of a series of the major Mozart choral works conducted by Colin Davis. Included were Requiem, Great Mass in c, Coronation Mass, Credo Mass and this album. Today all of the items have been reissued on CD, but alas, not as part of a combined CD set.

This is about the best performance of the Vespers on recording. Davis, orchestra, chorus and soloists are all on a wonderfully coordinated plane, and I prefer this to those perhaps more historically correct 'period' performances. It would be great if Phillips could rerelease all of the Davis' Mozart choral works on a CD set.

This is the kind of recording we took for granted forty years ago, although the advent of the young Kiri Te Kanawa, still in her mid-twenties was by no means a routine event. I remember a little later after this disc appeared getting a signed copy of her Mozart recital LP and thinking I'd never heard a lovelier voice; she was made for Mozart, as her peerless Countess proves.

However, she is not the only reason for buying this CD: the sound is excellent and Colin Davis is already requiring a period lightness from his musicians without any of the attendant excessive HIP disadvantages. The LSO play with a freshness and spring wholly apt to the joyful abandon of this music and nothing is treacly or laboured, even when a graver demeanour is in order, such as in the dignified but flowing "Ave Verum". The regular team of supporting soloists is on hand, including the grand, distinctive bass of Gwynne Howell.

My esteemed fellow-reviewer Bernard O'Hanlon finds Kiri to sound "flat" in her showpiece "Exsultate", by which I gather he means not flat in pitch - which she isn't - but in tonal refulgence and expression. I have listened again and again and compared her with similar-voiced Sylvia McNair but I cannot hear it; both are delightful. I think he might be put off by the fact that her vibrato is fast and light - usually a very attractive thing in sopranos too often afflicted by a wobble - and because she never seems to need to lean into her tone to carry the note, so it all sounds very effortless - which it is. He asserts that she sounds better in her solo "Laudate Dominum" in the Vespers and it's true her tone is marginally more vibrant there. Throughout, her pure, flickering trill and fluting top notes - including a superb top C to conclude the "Alleluia" - are evidence of a singer whose technique must already have been the envy of her peers and which explains why she continued to sing beautifully for another forty years.

Not all the music here is the same top-drawer quality as the better-known numbers but it's all is as skilfully crafted as you would expect from Mozart and gems such as the soprano solos make the disc worth five stars by any measure.

I turned on my poor quality car radio and this was on, about halfway through. I was hooked. I sat in the driveway listening to the end. Then I went online and tracked it down and ordered it. I think this is possibly the most beautiful music in the universe. I don't ever get tired of listening to it.

I have entered a choral music phase in my musical explorings. Maybe because I love the L'Allegro ... dance concert by Mark Morris and saw it again in May at Berkeley and realized that part of what I loved so much was the choral music by Handel, so started to explore that music on You Tube and Amazon.

Anyone have any recommendations for similarly wonderful masterpieces?

Anybody having Exsultate Jubilate as their favourite would probably agree with me that this CD is the very best. Other performers have recorded this title but none of them has reached the same heights as Dame Kiri.
I have never heard any other soprano sing Exsultate Jubilate with the same clear voice, especially at the end of the part "Unde Suspirat Cor" her vibrato is the most beautiful - it always gives me great pleasure. I can listen to these 15 minutes of the CD anytime.
You can also view same title on the DVD Kiri Te Kanawa-Home & Afar (NTSC) or the same new DVD release (2009) Kiri Te Kanawa- In Concert (NTSC).
This CD is Sir Colin Davis' & Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's masterpiece.

Those among us who remember the old cassette deck with fondness - `Normal - Chrome - Metal' - will recall a little dial called Tone. It spontaneously comes to mind whenever I listen to this disc. I so want to crank it up.

Kiri Te Kanawa is flat in Exsultate Jubilate. Her flatness is not of pitch but of tone. She's more vertically challenged than a pancake. It's a mystery. It surely cannot have been nerves as she was no novice at the time. Perhaps she had just flown in from New Zealand or had supped at the Restaurant of the Brown Death on the eve of the recording session. It goes to show that our greatest artists are not robots; Kiri is entitled to an off day but I do not understand why her interpretation has attracted such plaudits. By contrast, Mathis and Ameling devour this showpiece with an evanescence that is manifestly lacking in this performance (Mozart: Kronungmesse / Spatzenmesse / Ave Verum Corpus / Exsultate, Jubilate & Mozart: Exsultate Jubilate)

Sir Colin Davis is the star of this disc. He imbues Ave Verum Corpus & Exsultate Jubilate with an unparalleled intensity - just listen to the strings at `de Maria Virgine' or the cello-line in the orchestral prelude to Tu Virginum Corona. The Vespers are despatched with flair and reverence (Kiri is Kiri in the Laudate Dominum). The great Kyrie in D Minor is stupendously performed (and what a work it is - one is tempted to say that we don't need the manuscript to surface in order to ascribe it to late Mozart).

The recording from 1971 is somewhat hoary. A remastering would most welcome. Shortcomings aside, this disc is still indispensable.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

- Vesperae Solennes de confessore ("Solemn Vespers for the Feast of a Confessor")
- Kyrie (FYI: a Kyrie is the first movement of a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass)
- Ave verum corpus ("Hail, true body"... a Eucharist hymn)
- Exsultate, jubilate (Mozart's Alleluia)

Kiri Te Kanawa - soprano
Elizabeth Bainbridge - contralto
Ryland Davies - tenor
Gwenny Howell - bass

Sir Colin Davis
London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

(Philips - ADD analog 1971 recording)

These are beautiful pieces of cultic religious music and Kiri is excellent in them. Five Stars.

This is Mozart at his spiritual best and Kiri Te Kanawa in her prime. This sublime rendition of the Vesperae Solennes de Confessore is reason enough to purchase this great album. Particularly beautiful is the Laudate pueri Dominum, where a divine musical phrase is handed off to one voice after another in a cascade of brilliance. Then there is the amazing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, with its soprano dream solo, that Kiri owns completely. She carries this off with a pure, bell like voice, and her utterly beautiful, feminine phrasing. Her rendition of Exsultate, Jubilate is a triumph, and the beloved Ave verum corpus rounds out a near perfect album. Highly recommended.

Mozart: Exsultate, Jubilate, K. 165; Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339; Kyrie in D minor, K. 341; Ave verum corpus, K. 618Kiri is in superb voice and the supporting cast is also great. The best recording of these works that I have heard - ever.