Beethoven Missa Solemnis
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ludwig van Beethoven
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Magazine Review Date: 12/1995
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 77
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: HMC90 1557
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Mass in D, 'Missa Solemnis' |
Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer
(La) Chapelle Royale Choir Birgit Remmert, Contralto (Female alto) Champs-Élysées Orchestra, Paris Collegium Vocale Cornelius Hauptmann, Bass James Taylor, Tenor Ludwig van Beethoven, Composer Philippe Herreweghe, Conductor Rosa Mannion, Soprano |
Author: Edward Greenfield
Recorded live in Montreux last February, Herreweghe's recording of the Missa solemnis vies with Gardiner's studio performance with period forces – the Gramophone Record of the year in 1991 – as well as with Harnoncourt's live Salzburg Festival recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Recordings of two Herreweghe performances in Montreux were edited together, and I suspect that the disappointingly dim first entry of the chorus and soloists in the Kyrie stems from the earlier of the two. Whatever the explanation, the distancing of the voices, so disconcerting at the start, grows notably less during the performance. For the most part the balance is preferable to that in the Salzburg performance, similarly afflicted by backward placing of voices and rather opaque sound in heavy textures. Next to both of these the Gardiner studio account inevitably gains from better balance and great clarity, intensifying his extra urgency.
Gardiner would be my own first choice of the three, but there is still a strong case for advocating Herreweghe, when his speeds in the Kyrie and Agnus Dei are closer to latter-day convention, and more than Harnoncourt he conveys the work's deeply spiritual intensity. More than with Harnoncourt one registers this as live, tense communication. Even at the start with its odd balance, there is no mistaking the inner quality conveyed, the Innigkeit, the sense of embarking on a visionary journey. Only in those outer movements, the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, is there a substantial difference between Herreweghe and Gardiner over speeds, so that unlike Teldec (for Harnoncourt) Harmonia Mundi have been able to fit the whole work on a single CD, a substantial advantage. Interestingly in the meditative Sanctus the tempo differences are the reverse of the rest, with Gardiner the most spacious and Harnoncourt the fastest.
Though the balance of the voices, both of chorus and soloists, blunts their edge to a degree, the sharpness of attack is refreshing, amply justifying a performance on a relatively intimate, period scale, aided by the extra tang of the orchestral texture with its rasping brass. The four young soloists make an excellent team, most satisfyingly topped by the sweet, firm tone of the Canadian soprano, Rosa Mannion, previously heard as Dorabella in the Gardiner Cosi (Archiv, 2/94). The American tenor, James Taylor, clear and fresh, makes his mark strongly too as another relative newcomer to disc, incisive rather than weighty in the great statement of ''Et homo factus est''. Curiously it is the most experienced of the four as a recording artist, the bass, Cornelius Hauptmann, who slightly disappoints in his rough tone on the key solo which opens the Agnus. After that Herreweghe finds a spring-like release in the compound time of the Dona nobis pacem, even if the military interruptions are not quite as dramatic as one wants. In sum a good alternative to the Gardiner for a period-scale performance. The Herreweghe sampler, which is offered with the disc for a limited period, presents an imaginative and often unexpected selection of his recordings ''from Mozart to Schoenberg'', from the C minor Mass to Pierrot Lunaire, with an excerpt from the Schoenberg arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde, featuring the same mezzo as the new Missa solemnis, Birgit Remmert.'
Gardiner would be my own first choice of the three, but there is still a strong case for advocating Herreweghe, when his speeds in the Kyrie and Agnus Dei are closer to latter-day convention, and more than Harnoncourt he conveys the work's deeply spiritual intensity. More than with Harnoncourt one registers this as live, tense communication. Even at the start with its odd balance, there is no mistaking the inner quality conveyed, the Innigkeit, the sense of embarking on a visionary journey. Only in those outer movements, the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, is there a substantial difference between Herreweghe and Gardiner over speeds, so that unlike Teldec (for Harnoncourt) Harmonia Mundi have been able to fit the whole work on a single CD, a substantial advantage. Interestingly in the meditative Sanctus the tempo differences are the reverse of the rest, with Gardiner the most spacious and Harnoncourt the fastest.
Though the balance of the voices, both of chorus and soloists, blunts their edge to a degree, the sharpness of attack is refreshing, amply justifying a performance on a relatively intimate, period scale, aided by the extra tang of the orchestral texture with its rasping brass. The four young soloists make an excellent team, most satisfyingly topped by the sweet, firm tone of the Canadian soprano, Rosa Mannion, previously heard as Dorabella in the Gardiner Cosi (Archiv, 2/94). The American tenor, James Taylor, clear and fresh, makes his mark strongly too as another relative newcomer to disc, incisive rather than weighty in the great statement of ''Et homo factus est''. Curiously it is the most experienced of the four as a recording artist, the bass, Cornelius Hauptmann, who slightly disappoints in his rough tone on the key solo which opens the Agnus. After that Herreweghe finds a spring-like release in the compound time of the Dona nobis pacem, even if the military interruptions are not quite as dramatic as one wants. In sum a good alternative to the Gardiner for a period-scale performance. The Herreweghe sampler, which is offered with the disc for a limited period, presents an imaginative and often unexpected selection of his recordings ''from Mozart to Schoenberg'', from the C minor Mass to Pierrot Lunaire, with an excerpt from the Schoenberg arrangement of Das Lied von der Erde, featuring the same mezzo as the new Missa solemnis, Birgit Remmert.'
Beethoven Missa Solemnis
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