This release constitutes the fourth officially available recording of Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Riccardo Muti. It’s a very welcome addition to the catalogue, where it joins the conductor’s fiery studio recording from London in 1979, his larger-scale live La Scala account from 1987 and a more recent Chicago version (CSO Resound, 12/10), also live, which, while demonstrating a more expansive approach to the score, is marred by some poor solo singing.

Dating from only a couple of years after the London recording, and released here for the first time, this Munich concert from 1981 shares the earlier set’s incisiveness and incandescent sense of drama – as well as, in Agnes Baltsa and Evgeny Nesterenko, two of its soloists. The ‘Dies irae’ is every bit as thrillingly fast and furious, with especially imposing brass and excitingly drilled strings, while Muti produces an even greater sense of grandeur in the ‘Lacrymosa’ and gripping drama in the ‘Tuba mirum’ (listen to the BRSO trumpets!). The Bavarian Radio Choir are more imposing but hardly less agile than the Ambrosian Chorus on the London recording, getting around the conductor’s breakneck speed for the Sanctus every bit as impressively.

If the London set occasionally sounds a little harsh and sonically constrained to modern ears, the Munich recording, captured in large-scale, warm engineering, offers something more generous and expansive in feel, even if many timings are similar. BR-Klassik’s booklet relates the conductor’s admiration for both orchestra and chorus, and one can hear why. But while the choral singing is outstanding, the singers – chorus and soloists – are occasionally a little unfocused in the sound picture. Neither Baltsa nor Nesterenko is done any favours as a result: the mezzo lacks intensity in her tone, while the bass is less imposing than in London.

José Carreras is a touch unwieldy and doesn’t blend ideally with his colleagues, perhaps, but there’s an undoubted emotional urgency and directness in his singing; the ‘Ingemisco’, not as stylish as Pavarotti’s at La Scala, is nevertheless rousingly done, and he offers a decent pianissimo in the ‘Hostias’. Jessye Norman, the pick of the quartet, is superb, blending richness with delicacy and a moving seriousness of approach; listen to her in the ‘Quaerens me’ passage of the ‘Recordare’ (from 1'43", where she and Baltsa blend better than elsewhere), or to her breathtaking way with the ‘Requiem’ section of the Libera me (from 4'43").

Whether one prefers this to the more drily recorded La Scala performance will, in large part, be down to preference regarding soloists, but, all in all, here’s an all-enveloping performance of this great work that demands to be heard. Highly recommended.