Great Performance of Solist but foggy sound of Choir
Hiram Gomez Pardo | 02/29/2000
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I like the performance of Bruno Walter. His performance has some profound atmosphere and his Mozart is superb. His performance has some gentleness and womanlike softness. It makes someone who hear his performance feel as being taken upto beyond the heavenly place. But this performance is something disappointed. The sound of Choir in the introduction is heard somewhat like that I am hearing music behind the curtain. But the performance of the solist is very good."
An historical album worthy to collect!
Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 11/03/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Salzburg, 1956. The legendary conductor Bruno Walter has programmed a concert dedicated to Mozart's second bicentenary. The Symphony Kv. 183 and the Requiem have been the chosen works to be performed. But what the most of that selected audience is just to presence will be one of the most overpowering moments of the Western music.
The Symphony Kv. 183 keeps a very narrow tragic affinity with the Requiem Kv. 626. specially in the First and Second movements, because despite we are talking about a work composed in 1777, one may feel in curious parallelism with the Second movement of the Ninth Piano Concerto, a close resemblance of a tragic breadth. A flipping wing of dark presages, hovered by a deep and thoughtful atmosphere that transcends the work by itself.
The Requiem recorded here has been recognized - by most of critics - as the most mesmerizing of all the previous or late Requiems recorded by this distinguished interpreter.
Just keep in mind the presence of Cessare Sieppi, Anton Dermota and Lisa della Casa, the impressive chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic in that special year in that special stage.
The historical transcendence of that memorable Concerto is still motive of legitimate proud for all of us who have been fortunate listeners of that unforgettable artistic event.
This version of the Requiem still stands out as one of the most terrific, extraordinary and electrifying musical registers ever noticed.
So please, leave aside all the acoustic imperfections and let you convey by the magic of this transcendental moment.
This is no more, no less one of the greatest achievements of the XX Century, without hesitation. Don't let pass this golden opportunity and acquire it before it becomes an unavailable item. Don't think it over, my respectable reader.
"