Three years after its recording, the release of the Kubelik Creation is something of a non-event. In terms of resources, it comes nearer Karajan (DG) than either Marriner (Philips) or Harnoncourt (Teldec), but the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra play with little of the nervous urgency of Karajan's Viennese. In the Prelude, for example, Karajan never forgets the energy latent in the void, the order waiting to spring from chaos: Kubelik, by contrast, sounds sleepy and inert. There is some fine, translucent woodwind playing here which comes into its own at the 'magic flute' appearance of Adam and Eve. But in its fresh, amiable, yet slightly complacent orchestral playing, this performance works at a similarly safe expressive level as Marriner's.
As Kubelik's Creation unfolds, it has little of the sense of excited discovery which both Karajan and Harnoncourt convey in their differing ways. Recitative is painfully slow, progressing word by word with heavily intrusive and unimaginative harpsichord playing. Kubelik's tempos weigh down arias like Margaret Marshall's ''Nun beut die Flur'': indeed, the chorus ''Die Himmel erzahlen'' sounds rather as if the Bavarian Radio Chorus have done the bulk of the grosse Werk themselves. The recording quality becomes a little boxy, too, when coping with heavier forces.
Kubelik, like Bernstein before him (DG 419 765-1GH2; (CD) 419 765-2GH2, 9/87), is prodigal of soloists. He has a separate soprano and baritone for the two humans; and, with archangels like these, it is perhaps just as well. Gwynne Howell's Raphael is a sepulchral narrator. It is perhaps unwise to cast a thorough-going bass in this role: it's certainly fun during the procession of the reptiles and the romps of Leviathan, but Howell has to push his way laboriously through the higher notes, and his performance is short on expressive malleability and sheer presence compared with that of van Dam (Karajan), Fischer-Dieskau (though he is over-onomatopoeic for Marriner) or, best of all, Robert Holl (Harnoncourt).
Uriel is a tricky customer: only Protschka (Harnoncourt) really captures that propulsive joy and wonder in the phrasing and slowly shifting tones of his part. Vinson Cole is relentlessly heroic unstylish and less than happy with the lie of the language. Alone of the soloists here, Margaret Marshall conveys a real sense of joy and excitement as Gabriel, without quite the elegance of phrasing of a Gruberova (Harnoncourt) or the effortlessness of a Mathis (Karajan and Marriner).
It's something of a relief when the Third Act curtain rises on Weikl and Popp as Adam and Eve. Popp certainly has the ring and conviction of the first lady of a brave new world, but Weikl's timbre is somewhat middle-aged, and his avuncular invitation to ''Folge mir'' emphasizes the sluggish attention to phrasing and inflection which characterizes this production throughout.
Regular readers will know where my sympathies lie: a year ago I highly praised Harnoncourt's Creation for its assiduous and revelatory attention to detail, its sense of animation and its line-up of soloists. It has not yet been superseded.'