Customer Reviews

Verdi: Messa da Requiem (Requiem Mass) / Rossini: Stabat Mater

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every classical music lover has certain albums or discs that they have a particular fondness for, in spite of what the critical consensus may be. This recording of Verdi's Requiem is one of mine. In our current era of flawless ensemble and bloodless excellence above all, Ormandy leads a highly charged, individual performance of this masterpiece.

The soloists (despite the dismissal in the Penguin Guide) are all excellent, with particular honors going to Richard Tucker and Lucine Amara, whose pianissimo B-flat in the "Libera me" is exquisite. She is one of those artists taken for granted during her time, but whose talent and commitment would be most welcome today.

Ormandy has an (undeserved) reputation of being dependable but dull; however, on this recording he is anything but run-of-the-mill. Listen to the frenzy he whips up at the beginning of the "Dies Irae" (terrific sound, by the way -- listen to that bass drum!) or the beauty with which he shapes the "Recordare." This is a conductor who is in the service of the music, not the other way around. This is most refreshing, especially since so many uber-maestros tend to turn this work into a showcase for how idiosyncratic their style can be.

The performance of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" which accompanies this set is more of a disappointment. I prefer the Chung recording on DG or the Hickox on Chandos. But no matter. At super-bargain price, this "Requiem" should not be passed by!

After listening to this sort of music for decades, NOW I discover Eugene Ormandy. When I was a kid he was marketed as the smooth, slick "Philadelphia Sound" guy. He was everywhere but no heavyweights ever seemed to take him seriously. You'd buy your Aunt Tillie an Ormandy LP for Christmas; you'd buy yourself von Karajan or Szell...you know, serious conductors.

Man, were we wrong. Virtually everything I'm hearing from this guy, recorded from the 1930s to the 1960s is knockout. His Beethoven Fifth is stellar. After years of getting my brains pounded out on that warhorse by everyone from Toscanini to Kleiber (either one!) FINALLY I come across a Fifth that eschews the melodrama yet totally convinces. It's magnificent, flawlessly played, and perfectly judged. If ever the word Olympian could be applied to a performance this would be the one. Even when Ormandy does go over the top, as he can in this incredible Verdi Requiem, it's done in a well-conceived way. In poetry, the words and subtle emphasis should carry the weight of a poem, shouting isn't necessary. Shouting just makes an audience jump and over long periods makes them cranky. I realize now that a lot of conductors, less musical than Ormandy, kind of shouted their way through masterpieces.

First of all I agree with the first reviewer when he says that

Eugene Ormandy is undervalued as a conductor. This is one of the

few really great recordings of this massive work. The soloists

are all legends of the opera and concert stages. The only quartet

of singers that could give them any real competition would

be Sutherland, Horne, Pavarotti, and Tavela, on the recording

with Solti on Decca. I am happy that Sony decided to issue it

both on the Essential Classics label and on SACD. Praise should

also go out to the Westminister Choir for their important and

wonderful contribution to this recording. It would be interesting

to see if Sony would issue it on a single CD, since one it would

fit and they have already issued it on a single SACD, but it is

only a single layer one not a hybrid. In my opinion many modern

conductors could learn a lot from listening to Maestro Ormandy's

recordings especially this one!

Hay mucha música coral disponible, hay muchos solistas y muchas grabaciones, pero como esta nunca podran encontrar, es lo mas grandioso, más grandilocuente, más vibrante, más poderoso que hayan o vayan a escuchar. La Misa de Requiem, es por si una obra majestuosa e impresionante, son orquesta, solistas y coro en una obra de 90 minutos, que nos llevan de la tristeza hasta el temor por el castigo, con sonidos penetrantes, con sonidos atemorizantes con sonidos de liberatd y de perdón. Los solistas llegan al corazón y al alma del auditor, nos entregan un mensaje, nos hacen acongojarnos y a vibrar por el valor y el temor de lo hecho.
La orquesta hace literalmente retumbar nuestros oidos, si los violines son capacez de hacernos vibrar, los timbales hacen que nuestro cuerpo tiemble. Alquien dira que es una exageración de Ormandy pero es el "Dies Irae" y debemos sentirnos arrepentidos.
El Westminster Choir es uno de los mejores y hace honor a ese prestigio, y los solistas alcanzan niveles insuperables, tuba mirum, libera me, lux aeterna, requiem, liber scriptus es y son cada uno momentos musicales inolvidables. Quizas y sólo quizas Giulini podria alcanzar este nivel.
Rossini a quien estaba dirigido la Messa da Requiem, escribió el Stabat Mater y es otra de esas pequeñas (en sentido figurado) joyas corales sacras que han sido escritas. No alcanza el nivel del requiem pero es una de esas versiones que se hace querer por su valor, su finura y su calidad, los solistas son del más alto nivel y Schippers lleva la Filarmonica de Nueva York con clase.
Este es un CD de los que no puede dejar de tener, incluso sino incluyera el Stabat Mater.

I agree with the other reviewers of this performance. Before I comment further, I have a number of the ones available, including three by the Verdi conductor I love best, Carlo Maria Giulini. Now, back to Ormandy. This performance is just great. It has BALANCE! And it is consistently good all the way through. I can't imagine someone knocking those soloists. They are just marvelous. I just love to listen to this recording. I get get lots of highs from a totally underrated conductor and his great orchestra. (The same is true of Ormandy's LSO recording of Dvorak's 9th Symphony. In my opinion the best ever...and I didn't expect so much from it until I discovered how excellent it was!)

I challenge anyone to listen to this performance of the Verdi's Missa da Requiem all the way through and then tell me it is not one of the very best out there. I didn't initially expect so much from it, but, hey, give the conductor, orchestra, soloists and choir their due! This one is a keeper, and is one of my very favorite recordings of the Missa.

I can't say I've heard every version of this piece but Ormandy's is the one I kept comparing others to when buying CDs of the Verdi Requiem. maybe it's because I heard Ormandy's first (on cassette tape), this is well nigh perfect. I now own an earlier version of the CD (not the one here - minus the Rossini) but in any case if you are looking for a CD version of this work and haven't found it yet, there is no reason to look any further, just get this one and you are done.

This album came out the same time as the Giulini recording (with Schwarzkopf, Ludwig, Gedda, and Ghiaurov/Philharmonia). That recording continues to get the great praise. But at the time, this one was deemed just as worthy, and indeed the soloists just as good - or better. Ormandy is not one step behind Giulini, and the orchestra and recorded sound are even better than EMI. Amara is much more idiomatic than Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. While the mezzos are equal, you have two different kinds of tenors. I would never want to be without Nicolai Gedda in anything. But Richard Tucker, not always my favorite artist, is remarkable here. George London's voice is a force of nature, again not to everyone's liking. But he injects just a little more emotion into what he sings than Ghiaurov (in HIS first major recording), and that's just fine. As to the drums whack, in Giulini it is obviously a drum, but the size and depth of the sound on Ormandy make you think of something cataclysmic. And isn't that what Dies Irae is all about.

I don't care much for the tame Rossini coupling. It's so-so only. Schippers does okay, and Justino Diaz is always dependable. But even he is rather generic.

By it for the Verdi, and enjoy it. At this price, you don't lose.

This was the first CD of the Verdi Requiem I ever bought. The reason: Richard Tucker. I simply love everything this man does, and so I wasn't about to pass up a chance to hear him in one of my favorite choral works.

But there are plenty of other reasons to get this album: four stellar soloists, a marvelous and well-recorded chorus, the fabulous "Philadelphia Sound" of the orchestra, and the can't-beat-it budget price.

There is also the delightful inclusion of the Rossini Stabat Mater featuring Thomas Schippers and the New York Philharmonic. This work was a runaway success when it was first premiered back in 1842 in France and Italy. Rossini had long left the opera limelight (his last opera William Tell was produced in 1829), so a new work from the operatic superstar was bound to be a knockout hit with the public.

If you have never heard the Rossini Stabat Mater, here is an excellent opportunity. The 54-minute, ten-movement work is unabashedly operatic: in fact, it almost sounds like a batch of studies for Verdi's Il Trovatore. Fans of Pergolesi may be a little put off by the apparent lack of reverence for the text (about Mary watching her son Jesus die an agonizing death on a cross). But give it a chance: after all, Verdi's Requiem (or at least the Libera Me) was initially intended to commemorate the memory of Rossini. Thus, the Rossini Stabat Mater makes a logical companion piece to the Verdi work.

Make no mistake: the human mind has produced nothing finer than the Verdi Requiem Mass. (Ah, yes, but I know Bach well; and I know the depths of Beethoven and Brahms). But, make no mistake, this recording is perfect. Everything is optimal. The singing, the playing, the music, it's all magnificent. If you ever encounter finer music, please notify me immediately.

With such an assemblage of performers, you would hardly expect the Verdi Requiem here to be anything other than a blockbuster - and so it proves. Ormandy could indeed on occasion be routine but he is here presiding over a great virtuoso band in its heyday and the soloists are all stalwarts of the Metropolitan Opera also in a golden period; everything comes together to create one heck of an impact. Furthermore, the sound is spectacular for its age; despite being Verdi Requiem veteran I found myself hearing instrumental lines and details I had not previously registered, so detailed is the sonic picture without sacrificing any of the spaciousness essential to the success of this sublime work.

I say I am a Verdi Requiem nut and I suppose I must be, as I own over twenty recordings and have loved the work since I first heard it broadcast from St Paul's Cathedral with Bernstein conducting in 1970. I keep only those which I consider to have merit and have discarded a few more as inadequate. This one had previously gone under my radar but it's a keeper.

I was initially concerned that Lucine Amara would not have the heft and spinto thrust to tackle the soprano role especially alongside such big-voiced colleagues but I need not have worried: she is assured and impassioned, riding over the orchestra in the Libera me while still sounding suitably imploring and terrified. The great Maureen Forrester had a fine, incisive mezzo with a fast vibrato and great vibrancy, despite a little tentativeness on top notes. Tucker is in heroic voice even if his tone can be a little piercing and George London's bass-baritone is impressively saturnine and hieratic. A rarity is to hear all three soloists of whom it is required producing real trills. The Westminster Choir (Princeton, not London) are as superb as the orchestra; fearless and flexible. Despite the weightiness of his interpretation, Ormandy doesn't hang around and this is by no means one of the slower performances available.

The Stabat Mater is a lesser affair, so just regard it as dessert bonus to the main course. None of the performers sounds especially engaged, although it's always a pleasure to hear the young Martina Arroyo, even if she sounds rather out of her natural element in Rossini. Mezzo-soprano Beverly Wolff, who sang frequently with Beverley Sills, was a fine singer and delivers "Fac, ut portem" confidently with admirable breath control and ringing top notes. The tenor is strained and unlovely of tone; bass Justino Diaz is competent but unremarkable. Conductor Thomas Schippers will be remembered for other, far superior recordings of which there are a good few despite his premature demise.

Available at a bargain price, this is a safe recommendation if you like your Verdi Requiem as operatic as possible; the Rossini remains negligible and my five stars are therefore for the Verdi. For the Rossini, I recommend above all the old Kertesz recording on Decca, followed by the Muti on EMI then the Scimone newly issued on Newton (see my reviews).