Search - L.V. Beethoven :: Missa Solemnis

Grand and devotional - but with variable soloists

Ralph Moore | Bishop's Stortford, UK | 02/04/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The biggest and most welcome surprise here is the way that Bernstein takes a broad overview of the music and sits back, letting it speak eloquently without his imposing any self-regarding or self-aggrandising gestures. It is a broad, grand interpretation but never lacks excitement at key moments.



The orchestra is magnificent and the choir hardly less so, so it is the greater pity that there is a certain muddiness in the way they are recorded, whereas the soloists remain prominent in the sound picture. My reservations centre on their quality and homogeneity as a team, hence the reduction of one star. All are impassioned and committed but Edda Moser is decidedly shrill and edgy in the higher reaches of her voice, especially if you compare her with Gundula Janowitz for Karajan or Söderström for Klemperer, to name the chief competition. Similarly, Kollo is no Wunderlich, and can be rather whiney and bleaty as is his wont. Hanna Schwarz is unexceptionable and unexceptional in the alto part. The best voice in the quartet is the great Kurt Moll, then in his young prime, but the very distinctiveness of his sound - a rich, penetrating "buzz" if I can put it that way - makes him stand out in ensemble.



The violin solo in the Benedictus is exquisitely played by Herman Krebbers - but Michael Schwalbe for Karajan is equally rapt. This is a beautiful account which gives Bernstein the orchestra and choir he deserved and did not always get. The sound quality, apart from the slight fuzziness around the choir, is barely distinguishable from a studio recording yet it conveys the frisson of a live performance. Bernstein is in full control of a world class orchestra and a choir better drilled and disciplined than some of those he directed in the latter part of his career and here infuses this monumental work with both an autumnal glow and a yearning supplication worthy of Beethoven's most devotional work."