Search - Jerry Hadley :: Leonard Bernstein - Mass / Nagano, Hadley, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Uninspired and disappointing

T. Parks | Michigan, USA | 10/26/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Having cut my musical eye-teeth on the original cast recording of the Mass, I was so excited to see an updated version of this highly influential theatre work. Unfortunatley, my hopes were dashed by a recording that suffers both artistically and technically. Perhaps it is because Alan Titus' voice is so stuck in my head, but the selection of vocalists shows a refinement that cheapens the performance. The raw quality of Bernstein's statement has been tamed, and the result is flat and lacking in emotion.



This recording also has some fascinating technical issues. On many occasions voices are buried by the orchestra. Soloists come and go with remarkable inconsistency. The recording is muddy in places, and compared to the original cast project leaves much to be desired.



Everyone should own a copy of the Mass, but they should do themselves the favor of buying the original rather than this lukewarm copy."

Stick to Bernstein's Original Recording

Thomas J. Otto | Washington DC | 11/17/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Having been a huge fan of Mass since I first heard Bernstein's recording when I was in college in the late 80s, I was really excited to see a new recording. While some of the ensemble playing and singing on this recording is technically better it is almost entirely without any kind of soul or emotion. Hadley is okay altough I prefer Alan Titus in the original recording. The real tragedy of this recording is the quality of the many soloists sprinkled throughout the work. They sound like trained choral singers trying to be broadway stars and the effect is awful. Although I don't know this for a fact, after hearing this recording I am convinced that the original recording must have used actual broadway singers/actors--normally not my cup of tea, but far superior to any of the soloists on the Nagano recording. There are also issues with the placement of the various ensembles and balances are disappointing both in terms of sound quality and dramatic tension."

Nagano's reading is a revelation

Thomas O. Sidebottom | Cedar Rapids, IA and Menlo Park, CA | 01/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I loved Leonard Bernstein's Mass when I first heard Bernstein's recording of it in the early 1970's. Unfortunately it didn't age will with me: years later I found many of the frequent stylistic juxtapositions forced and the musical-style numbers dated. So I was very interested in Kent Nagano's new recording for Harmonia Mundi.



Nagano's reading is a revelation. I came away with a renewed interest in Bernstein as a composer, if not as a conductor. (As an old music teacher of mine said, don't rely on recordings and performances made by the composer of a score.) Nagano unifies the whole complex work with clean, brisk tempos that have well-defined relationships between sections. Jerry Hadley uses his profound skill to realize the central role of Celebrant as never happened before in Bernstein's recording; in that earlier recording, Alan Titus sings emotionally but variably. Hadley never loses sight of the overall work. His reading of the closing Fraction is amazing.



Instrumental playing is uniformly clean: I heard instrumental textures that I'd never heard in Bernstein's own recording. The choral singing is good, but the English intonation is weak, especially in some of the pop sequences.



If you're interested in revisiting a 1970's period piece, I'd highly recommend this recording."