Post by Cherubino February 25, 2009 (11 of 25)
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Kal Rubinson said:
The Telarc is boring.
Kal
The performance of this music, which is largely contemplative, consoling and accepting of death, doesn’t strike me as boring. True, Mr. Spano does not fully build climaxes, particularly in "Denn Alles Fleisch", that others do, but this is a performance that, in many respects, reminds me of the flowing, and deeply moving Lehmann/Berlin Philharmonic DG Originals (mono) recording. Not on that level perhaps, but in its tradition.
That said, what I'd really like from the BSO and Mr. Levine is the Verdi Requiem, the most operatic of them all. Some years ago I attended a performance as part of the Met Orchestra's Carnegie Hall series, with Renee Fleming, Florence Quivar, Luciano Pavarotti and Samuel Ramey, conducted by Mr. Levine. Other than Luciano Pavarotti holding back for much of the performance, and losing his place at one point in the Kyrie (despite using the score), this was a splendid performance. This is a score that plays to Mr. Levine's musical and theatrical strengths. That and his close relationship with the greatest singers in the world, would likely yield a truly great performance, and make a marvelous SACD - maybe one for the ages.
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Post by armenian February 25, 2009 (12 of 25)
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If they are able to capture the symphony hall ambience that will make this a worthwhile performance, this is one area where Telarc has not done well, at least in my opinion, I find their large scale orchestral and choral recordings a bit too dry.
Vahe
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A confession:
I had to return my Sony XA9000ES for service and only recently received it and hooked back into the system. To make a long story short, I had neglected to connect the rear right channel to the correct output and I was getting only half of the surround mix.
I discovered this by listening only to the rears and of course I recognized the problem immediately and took corrective steps.
I just listened to the first three movements and found nothing to complain about. The sound stage in MCH was enormously wide and the sound was very much like what I am accustomed to hearing in the hall.
Dave Raffells has written many a jibe at we MCH fans and annoyed me greatly with his persistent carping that amounts to telling us that we blaspheme against stereo.
But one thing Dave said that has stuck in my mind as absolute truth, was that in a concert, you do NOT hear the reflections coming off the rear walls - meaning (I assume) that they are not heard as discrete sounds in and of themselves. That is certainly true. But unfortunately there are some MCH recordings that "guild the lily" by adding artificial reverb or echo to the mix so it seems that you are hearing echos off the back wall.
If you do hear legitimate echos off the back wall - that is a very flawed concert hall. If the hall is actually a fine one and you hear such reflected sound in a mch recording, it is a hokey recording.
Don't look for that kind of misjudged engineering here. It is a far more truthful recording than that. The recorded sound coming from your rear speakers combine with sounds in the front to create an all enveloping recreation of that wonderful acoustical phenomenon that we who are familiar with its sound in the presence of an audience will recognize as Symphony Hall, Boston.
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I have to say, I find the performance completely unremarkable. I feel like I must be missing something, but the choral singing is very undistinguished and just plain loud. There is so much subtlety and sensitivity that is missing from this recording. I'll give it a few more listens, particularly for Christine Schäfer's beautiful singing, but so far I'm quite disappointed.
Am I missing something?
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Post by wehecht March 16, 2009 (15 of 25)
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Just a preliminary impression based on one listening session: the performance is solid if unremarkable, but I think that's in the nature of the work which is essentially humanistic and consolatory and decidedly not heaven storming; the solo singing is fine, the choral singing is professional; this orchestra and conductor can play anything to a very high standard and they do so here; the MC sound is wide, deep, and very smooth, almost tangible. Reading these comments it's clear that I found nothing in this release to get terribly excited about (other than the mere existence of new sacd recordings from the BSO), but much to enjoy. It'll certainly find its way into my player more often than the Spano or Herreweghe versions.
Bill
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Post by emaidel March 17, 2009 (16 of 25)
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I've already posted my futile attempts to purchase this disc from the BSO website, but I'm going to give it another try. I have five recordings of ths magnificent work, in addition to a recording of my own chorus' performance last April. They are:
Robert Shaw and the ASO on Telarc
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir (singing it in English) also on Telarc
Simon Rattle on Phillips
John Eliot Gardiner on Phillips (Gramophone's Choice)
Robert Spano (my only SACD of this piece) on Telarc
For interpretation, I'd give the Rattle disc top marks, closely followed by Shaw's. Neither are sonic knockouts, and for some reason, there's no organ in Rattle's performance. The Gardiner disc, at least in my opinion, doesn't deserve the accolade from Gramaphone. While the performance is very good, it's not THAT good, and the recording is downright lousy, especially the bass voices which sound brittle and thin. An aside on the Shaw recording: prior to the dissolution of the Telarc staff by Concord Music, there had been a plan to reissue a DSD remastered SACD of this disc. Most such remastered were done by a gentleman named Paul Blakemore at Telarc, who, while one of the very few to still be employed at Concord Music, has been give other tasks to perform, with no future SACD's forthcoming, remastered or otherwise.
The MTC is just too big a chorus for this work, and the English translation (by Robert Shaw) just doesnt' "work." Nathan Gunn as the baritone however, is heads and shoulders above most others.
Last, the Spano: I quite like this recording, but like many a Telarc SACD, the sonics tend far too much towards "lush," and not "detailed." In the past, the guilty item has been the overruse of the Sennheiser MKH-800 microphone, which is used on this disc, but then so too is an astonishingly good Sanken microphone, so why this disc still lacks the upper-end detail that it does is a mystery. The soloists are simply so-so, and have been severely criticized in many a review as "too wobbly." I have to agree.
So which one's best? Well, I'm hoping it's the new Levine disc. I'll just have to wait and see!
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Post by tommwi March 17, 2009 (17 of 25)
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Cherubino said:
...the flowing, and deeply moving Lehmann/Berlin Philharmonic DG Originals (mono) recording.
Ahaa.. Here is someone who really knows his Brahms well. This is one of the best Brahms performances I have ever come across. Add Karajan (DG 60's) and Klemperer (EMI) and we have a trio of classic recordings from a performing tradition that is my benchmark!
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Post by emaidel March 21, 2009 (18 of 25)
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My copy of this disc arrived yesterday, and I listened to it from beginning to end. Is it the "definitive" recording of the Requiem? No, but it is one of the better, and that says a lot.
I'm not too much of a fan of "live" recordings, as I find audience noises, especially coughing, particularly annoying, and there's a good bit of that on this disc - at the start. Just as in a live performance, as the music builds, and the audience gets more and more involved with it, audience members seem to make a more concerted effort to silence things such as coughs and sneezes. That same phenomenon occurs on this disc.
James Levine's conducting is first rate, but several of the movements, the second, third and sixth in particular, are at a far slower pace than I'm used to hearing. Fortunately "slow," instead of meaning "plodding," in the case of this recording, becomes "stately." There's a good deal more majesty and development of dynamics as a result of the slower pace, especially so at the end of the sixth movement. Still, I would have preferred it just a tad livlier...
The Tanglewood Festival Chorus is fine, but occasionally, there are sloppy starts, and finishes, especially with sharp consonants that require all chorus members to concentrate on starting and finishing in unison. Still, the sound of the TFC is something to behold.
The baritone, Michael Volle is excellent, but the soprano, Christine Schafer is outstanding. Her performance of "Ihr Habt Nun Trarurigkeit" all but brought tears to my eyes, it's so lovely.
The disc is an SACD, but it's awfully hard to tell that from the cover. The only indication anywhere is on the back of the jewel case, and the SACD logo is fairly small. So too is the all but microscopic print explaining that "this hybrid Super Audio CD can be played on any standard compact disc player."
I can't let the following go unsaid: one can only wonder why the ONLY place this disc can be purchased is through the BSO website (or through a series of phone calls). Not only does that severely limit the amount of discs than will be sold, but the still horrible experience of attempting to navigate the website makes many a prospective buyer just give up after so much frustration.
This recording is an excellent rendition of one of music's most glorious works, and as such, should be readily, and easily, available to anyone who'd like to purchase it. Until the method of distribution is changed, it's doomed to be a sales failure, and that would be a crying shame.
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Post by hiredfox May 15, 2009 (19 of 25)
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Having waited for many weeks for Amazon to sort out the distribution mess for this disc, I was delighted yesterday to receive an e-mail from them saying that my copy has been despatched.
At Last!
It looks guys as 'though the BSO is in business in a more accessible way. Can't wait now.
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There may be somewhat better performances out there, though I find this one very moving and satisfying. But, sonically via Mch, this has to rank as one of the very best recordings I own. Certainly, I have never heard a large chorus reproduced with the realism of this disk. There is an uncanny ability to hear the chorus as a group of individual voices you can almost, but not quite, count. But, this is not overdone and enhances the you-are-there effect. I also like the presence of the organ very much, which is there just enough in some passages and never overprominent like it is sometimes in the yawner performance by Spano. Excellent orchestral sound is there, as well. The overall effect musically and sonically makes this my most beloved performance for total involvement in the work.
Curiously, I did not get the same kick, musically or sonically, out of the BSO Daphnis & Chloe recorded within a week of the Brahms. But, I will gladly jump on any new releases by this fine orchestra in this legendary hall under a conductor I greatly admire.
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