Customer Reviews

Mozart: Mass (K 427 in C Minor)

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Known for having elevated the symphony and the opera to popular levels in his lamentably short life, Mozart was also substantially involved in sacred music. Among many smaller works for solo chorus and for combined choral/orchestral forces, he composed an enormous seventeen settings of the Latin Mass, of which this is his last. But this C Minor mass, which is said he composed in 1782 and 1783, was never really completed in a way Mozart found satisfactory, and thus it has been up to others to put this work into coherent form. The recording here is based on the reconstruction done by Salzburg composer and musicologist Helmut Eder; he worked on the "Et Incanatus Est" section of the Credo, as well as the concluding Sanctus and Benedictus sections. The work is still Mozart's, and is scored for a fairly substantial orchestra: one flute; pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns, and trumpets; three trombones; timpani; organ; and the full string compliment, plus four soloists and chorus.

Bringing all this together would be a massive task for anyone, and on this recording made in December 1990, that task falls to Claudio Abbado, who was then in his second full year as the music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, having taken over for the departed Herbert von Karajan. Both Abbado and the Berliners are no strangers to Mozart, and the proof is in this large-scale recording, featuring a distinguished ensemble of vocal soloists (Barbara Bonney; Arleen Auger; Hans Peter Blochwitz; Robert Holl), and the Berlin Radio Chorus. Maintaining the Berlin Philharmonic's ultra-high standards of performance would have challenged even the best, but Abbado manages it with style, staying true to Mozart's intentions and helping to bring back to prominence a choral piece of the composer's that sometimes stands in the long-shadow of the Requiem and thus is less familiar to audiences. As a rare and somewhat unknown Mozart piece, this Great C Minor 17th Mass is well worth seeking out.

That old chesnut of a saying: "whenever someone mentions culture, I reach for my revolver" could easly be applied to Claudio Abbado and his tenure at Berlin. In a metaphorical sense, a Lugar is warranted.

His decade-long reign represented the lowest ebb in the history of the orchestra. Ever so 'democratically' - whatever that means - he exorcised the famous sheen that so characterised the recordings of Herbert von Karajan and Wilhlem Furtwangler. Nowadays, as a result of his legacy, the Berlin Philharmonic sounds like another first class orchestra. Its unique sonority is gone and perhaps forever.

And here is another recording from his tenure that will be forgotten like so many others. Oh, Rest in Oblivion, those Bruckner recordings, the two Beethoven cycles, the Dvorak 8 & 9, the Tchaikovsky 1812, all those boring Mahler symphonies and other titbits. Abbado as Ozymandias might even utter the challenge to posterity: "Look upon my works, ye mighty, and yawn."

If you like your Mozart bland, skimmed down, salt-free and trimmed of fat, this is for you. You might as well be listening to Neville Marriner on a tepid day. The orchestra is the Berlin Phil in name alone. The soloists sing stylishly but they cannot mitigate the boredom. Niceness and sensibility prevail over any recognition that the Mass in C Minor is a stupendous masterpiece (BTW, the other reviewer's claim that K 427 is a "rare and somewhat unknown Mozart piece" is surely slapstick). Any such performance should command as much trepidation as an ascent of K2 - but not here: as is his wont in Mozart, Uncle Claudio dutifully delivers on the notes - to no vivid end. A deeper interpretative position is completely lacking.

I purchased this CD. I took it back the next day, redfaced. The likes of Karajan Mozart: Great Mass in C minor and Leppard Mozart: Mass in C minor both have something substantial to say about this work.

Don't underwrite mediocrity - or cultural atrocities.

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