While none of these English Creations uses the same edition of the text, Robert Shaw's own version is drastically different. He has expunged many of the peculiar linguistic contortions of the original (''the strongest impediment'' to the work's popularity in Britain, claims the booklet); but is ''confusion yields'' significantly preferable to ''now chaos ends'' and is the notion of ''highland and headland'' emerging above the clouds a more vivid image than ''mountains and rocks''? Nevertheless Shaw has been working with this version for well over 30 years so his singers are quite at ease with it; there's none of that awkwardness which so often accompanies familiar texts when translated into ''chatter-ese''. Indeed the choir emerges with flying colours. Shaw has trained them to a breathtaking degree of precision. Listen to those immaculately placed final consonants (''and God said'') in the opening chorus sung to a remarkably muted sotto voce, and to the wonderful buoyancy of ''a new created world''. All the choruses have tremendous energy, a real spring in their step, the result not of the sort of hectic tempos Hogwood chooses, but of consummate technical control and a real sense of enjoyment in the music. If nothing else here is a disc which should be required listening for all budding choral conductors and their choirs.
There is more to it than that, of course. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra are on sparkling form playing with all the neatness and fullbloodedness of Rattle's CBSO (EMI) but with the drive and joie de vivre of Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music (L'Oisean-Lyre). Instrumental solos are delectable and the luscious Telarc sound achieves an ideal balance between the echoing churchiness of King's College Chapel (for Willcocks on EMI) and the dry, crisp sounds for Hogwood's 'authentic' performance.
All this, I'm afraid, is leading up to a big 'but', and for me that 'but' is just too big to make this Creation a real contender. The problem lies with the soloists. Of the five (Shaw uses two additional singers as Adam and Eve) Heidi Grant Murphy (Eve) is outstanding. A beautifully pure voice, clean and clear, perhaps lacking the wide-eyed innocence of Arleen Auger (for Rattle), but certainly absolutely right for the part. Against her James Michael McGuire is a rather gruff and world-weary Adam with none of the sensitivity of John Shirley-Quirk, whose partnership with Heather Harper (for Willcocks) remains unsurpassed. I can find few redeeming features among the three angels. Dawn Upshaw sounds ugly and harsh, John Cheek has a certain presence but lacks the magisterial solidity of Michael George (for Hogwood), while Jon Humphrey's Uriel strains too hard for his top Gs (''In native worth''), cannot comfortably reach his bottom C (''Now vanished by the Holy beams'') and doesn't begin to compare in warmth or conviction with Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Hogwood's Uriel). And for all the work Shaw has obviously put into the text, I can barely hear a word from any of them.'