Customer Reviews

Schmidt: The Book of the Seven Seals

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If there's one thing this overwhelmingly powerful oratorio proves, it's "don't mess with the Big Man upstairs!" In setting the nearly-complete Apocalypse as revealed to John the Divine, the Austrian composer Franz Schmidt produced a masterpiece and, perhaps, the last great oratorio.

This is music that really ought to be in your collection. It is an easy piece to follow, as it is laid-out in the classic oratorio design, with John the narrator introducing the various events which occur as the seven seals are opened. Musically, Schmidt doesn't move much past chromatic late romanticism.

However, lest I make it sound like a retread of earlier pieces, I must reiterate that this is strong stuff. Schmidt wrote it right before World War II as he was dying of cancer and it has a truly prophetic feel about it.

The music for the Four Horsemen sequence is amazing. The War sequence contrasts a lamenting women's chorus with a brutal, vicious men's chorus based on a rhythmic figure that is pounded home. It's truly terrifying. This is followed by a heartbreaking mother/child duet describing the Horseman of Famine. The last horseman, Death, features two worn-out soldiers commenting about the last horsemen to music which aptly describes a silent, body-ridden battlefield.

The Amazon reviewer suggests that this is tuneless, but that is inaccurate. The melodies used are designed for contrapuntal development of which there is plenty. You won't soon forget the War chorus, I guarantee.

This performance is terrific, although with such a complicated piece some of the details get lost in the shuffle. Nevermind. Get this and be blown away by the end of the world and the coming heavenly kingdom. The power (& terror) of this music might just make you reconsider religion.

I bought this recording after hearing it live in Toronto with the TSO and Ben Heppner, I forgot who was conducting(someone not so well known)...it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life and the key moment was the "Hallelulia" chorus at the end. It was overwhelming! When it was over, I was shaking all the way home! I was dissapointed when I heard Welser-Most doing the same chorus...It's a bit slow and not dramatic enough. (That moment should be absolutely overwhelming, and swift-like, taking you up up and away!) I listened to it many times and even bought the Mitropoulos version to compare (which suffered terrible sound, but good interpretation and cast). But I still wasn't fully satisfied with the oratorio as a whole. Welser-Most does have some nice moments, especially in the "hell scenes" (full of dramatic thrust, weighty fire and powerhouse sound). But I still couldn't see the structure of the work, I needed to understand the work structurally and musically, and he didn't do that for me. Welser-Most just "walks the work on by".

EDIT ADD-ON: (Feb 14 2008)

I recently found a version that blows all others into the water! HORST STEIN with the Vienna Symphoniker and the Vienna Singverein live from 1996. It is spine-tingling, and earth moving! Plus the sound is in full blooded stereo!

Finally a version that does justice to Schmidt's Book of Seven Seals!

This is an outstanding recording of Schmidt's last masterpiece. The Amazon reviewer who cites the lack of melody might have missed some of the "big tunes"--they are there, but one cannot really incorporate "haunting melodies" in a fugue or in some of the faster movements of the piece. However, even if the work is not particularly melodic, it is certainy quite lyrical.

The performance is wonderful, particularly in the opening "Prelude in heaven" and the concluding sequence, starting with "Hallelujah!" The solo quartet (Oelze, Kallisch, Odinius, Reiter) make an excellent team, and Pape is quite commanding. The true "star" of the piece, however, is St. John--the nearly twenty-minute monologue at the beginning of Part II is quite without equal in the classical repertoire. Luckily, Stig Andersen is quite up to the demands of this enormously challenging part.

The only criticism I had was that (in my copy at least) there is a translation of the libretto, but not the libretto itself. Curiously, the Mitropoulos recording on Sony features the libretto but not the translation. However, at full price, texts and translations should be standard. One only need look at the Schubert Hyperion series for countless examples of good production design.

I have been an advocate for the music of Franz Schmidt for many years, during which time I have attempted to convince myself that "Das Buch" is a great work. There is no doubt in my mind that Schmidt's 4th Symphony is a towering masterpiece.... as decisively revealed by Zubin Mehta's transcedental recording with the Vienna Phil (1972). One would assume that his final work, the mighty "Das Buch", would scale the heights of musical expression as did the 4th Symphony, inspired as it is by an extremely lofty text. But, try as I might over the years, there's no denying that this oratorio, for all of its impressive passages, is hopelessly overwritten in every way. Every peformance that I have heard fails to hold together and make a convincing case for this most daunting work.

Franz Welser-Most's recording, while perhaps not a miracle of Biblical proportions, is truly amazing nonetheless. He has succeeded in bringing every passage--every page---no matter how dense the texture, awkward the harmonic language, tangled the counterpoint, or unwieldy its vocal/choral/orchestral apparatus---to life in a most taught, expressive, articulate and utterly compelling way as to defy all expectations. There's no way to begin to list the specifics, but if you are considering sampling this work OR if you already know it but are unconvinced of its great beauty, sweep and stature--as I was--- get this recording and give it a whirl.

First-rate artistry, and a great service to the underrated Franz Schmidt.

Every ten years or so, when the dearth of great German composers becomes too hard to bear, record companies trot out Franz Schmidt's The Book With Seven Seals, a grand oratorio based on the Book of Revelations. As far as scale and ambition goes, there's no arguing against this work, even though it's about as dated as a stuffed auk. With each new recording a few converts are made -- mostly among those who either love church or churchy music -- but to my ears this is banal stuff. Schmidt had an apocalyptic subject but worked in a cozy Sunday parlor style: think Elgar without the genius. There's no insight into the text and barely a memorable tune; the idiom is pre-brahms at best. I suppose Welser-Most's version is as good as any. The tenor soloist who sings the part of John strains considerably, but so do his rivals. I can't imagine wasting much time over this drearily devout farrago.