| Deceptive advertising (review from amazon.com) |
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This is my favorite recording of the Verdi Requiem. I first acquired the LP version as a teenager. I was so looking forward to hearing it on CD but, alas, I cannot play it. GOD DAMN SONY for their stupid, unnecessary and blatantly profiteering SACD format; it is nothing more than a rip-off and a way to sell their equipment to make more money off of unsuspecting consumers. I will NEVER buy anything with a Sony name on it again; NEVER!!!!! I feel extremely abused and cheated in the worst possible way by this shameless and unethical practice.
My advice: Don't touch anything with the name "Sony" on it (Especially true since I've visited some of the "Sony Sucks" websites after receiving this useless CD.) My tech-savvy (which I am not) 21-year-old son has been telling me Sony horror stories for years, but I was a little slow to catch on. Not any more.
Fortunately I still have my LP version; it's a little worn, but considering its age and history, it's in remarkably good shape. I'll just stick with it. What bothers me even more is that Sony has the whole Columbia catalog (Does anyone know if this is just the classical stuff or also the "popular" things like Bob Dylan, etc.?)
Thia is a truly preposterous example of corporate greed.
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| Golden Age heart with SACD Golden Age sonic details for Verdi Requiem (review from amazon.com) |
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Perhaps the best sacd version of them all so far that I have kept in my fav shelves is (in my opinion) this remastered Ormandy/Philadelphia version on sacd, in stereo only, from Sony.
Despite its age (1964), and despite having only two channels to present, this recording now achieves something like historic status as an example of how good master tapes from the stereo golden age could be. Thanks to sacd remastering, we can now be confident that we had never heard everything before that the tapes actually recorded. Tip your hat to the exemplary stereo engineering, the sound stage of this older master tape is now incredibly accurate, full-range, and present. One hears, not only each and every player/singer, individually, small group sectioned, and massed in very large forces, one also hears the resonance of the venue. None of this detail is forced, artificial, or in any way a detraction from the music.
Yes, Ormandy can be faulted, maybe, for being rather direct in his Verdi; but that wears simple and well on repeated hearings. Ormandy is never uninvolved or mauling the phrase with applications of musical ego, strong-arming his way into Verdi from outside the music.
The four soloists would have been rather regarded as very solid, but not especially flashy, Verdi singers in their day. Richard Tucker helped hold down the Verdi wing at the New York Met, and ditto for bass-baritone George London (who also sang great Wagner Wotan's). Canada's blessedly rich and intelligent Maureen Forrester certainly had all that the requiem demands, and my guess is that onstage she would have given Aida a run for her money as the female lead, if or when she ever did Amneris. The USA's Lucine Amara would have been considered just a tad light in voice for the typical heft, and soaring Verdian soprano drama believed to be inherent in her part.
Not to worry. No matter how any individual solo voice might have raised minor questions on its own, the four together are simply superb. In retrospect, and rather triumphing in comparison to what is supposed to pass for an archetypal Verdi voice in the Hanoncourt set, these folks are gorgeous. And so in tune with one another as a quartet.
Richard Tucker's passing Italianate mannerisms of attack and enunciation only add spice, and the center of his voice is pure shining steel chrome. George London makes for a convincing witness to the death of death in the Last Judgment, as well as always blending at the bottom of everything else in the most wise and consistent manner. Thanks to the incredible sacd stereo you get a sense of the burnished wood and depth in London's voice that did come through on LP's, but not at all like this. I have been in love with Maureen Forrester's voice ever since I first heard it on Bruno Walter's regular LP version of the Mahler Second Symphony. Then, very later in her public career, I happened to catch her as visiting artist with the Harvard-Radcliffe student orchestra. It was the 1970's. She still had a lot of voice left, and her intelligence and artistry were undimmed, yet aged into something else in musical person, falling on the ear like the best cured special ports fall on your taste buds and bloom in your nose. Lucine Amara didn't last all that long, looking back on it, but here she stands up and gives without reticence, sounding youthful and smart and silvery. Amara doesn't try to get heft into her voice by pushing it, and that says more than you might think if you were not actually listening to her in this recording.
Orchestra and chorus complete the generous cast. There is a sensuous feel and a presence to all their singing and playing that has not been heard until now, in this sacd stereo capture. Nothing in the sound audibly compresses, even when the music is very loud. Nothing in the sound threatens to leave the room, even when the music is very soft.
I cannot hear what has long been waiting for us on this master tape without wondering just what recorded treasures the other, old Columbia master tapes might be. The mystery is not what awaits us in these old masters, but why Sony has been so slow to bother with their back catalogue. What we do have so far, the Bruno Walter Brahms 4 and Beethoven 6, has not yet been surpassed, either as performance or even as sound. Wake up, Sony. Get a clue.
I plan to check out the newish sacd Bosch-led set, soon. Meanwhile, I think it quite safe to highly, highly, highly recommend this set, too. Whatever else you may have, or even end up getting, if you can play sacd, this set will make you marvel, and then some. Too bad Harnoncourt couldn't fly so high, even with the help of the renowned Vienna Philharmonic (who are certainly no slouches). Highly, highly, highly recommended.
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| The best SACD I know by quite a distance (review from amazon.com) |
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There are some shortcomings to this historic recording that I will deal with first since they take so little time:
1. The recording -- a true, not hybrid, SACD that requires an SACD player -- is not multichannel. It is stereo only. This should not deter you, however. If you've been buying SACDs you know some of them only play in stereo regardless of ths labeling by the selling company.
2. In contrast to most modern recordings of Verdi's Requiem there are only 7 tracks on the recording, one per part. Abbado's Vienna Philharmonic recording, for example, includes 9 tracks in the Dies Irae alone.
3. Ormandy's straightforward direction occasionally resuts in less drama than the norm. The final stage of the closing "Libera me" is an example of this.
Aside from these small criticisms, this is the best Super Audio CD I have heard since I converted my system to 5.1 surround sound six weeks ago. It is not only better than SACDs made last year, it is the one of the best recordings I have ever heard for artistry, realistic sound and balanced recording. It also crams more than 83 minutes of music on a single CD and still delivers a wallop in super audio sound.
Ormandy's recording of the Requiem, made in 1964, is not a stranger to most collectors. Brits don't like it and Americans love it. I am among the latter group and here's why:
-- Ormandy does not overinterpret, a mistake many great and not so great conductors make with this music. The last two new recordings I heard of this music (led by Harnoncourt and Gergiev) were both overinterpreted in very different ways.
-- Unlike the great Giulini version, this recording does not distort in the great climaxes of the Dies Irae and elsewhere. The bass and timpani, which were always a highlight of this recording, are now more exemplary than ever in the SACD recording.
What astonished me most about this recording -- again hearing it only in stereo, not in five channels -- was the remarkable demarcation of the sound field before me. I could clearly identify the four soloists standing ahead of the orchestra, which is situated ahead of the chorus.
It is clear that the soloists, standing left to right, are London (bass), Forrester (mezzo), Tucker (tenor) and Amara (soprano) and it sounds like Tucker might be step or two behind the ladies.
It is also clear that the woodwind section of the orchestra is in the middle, between the strings, and the brass section of the orchestra is at roughly 1 o'clock. The timpani appears to be at about 10 o'clock and situated behind the orchestra and ahead of the chorus.
I found this clarity and definition remarkable in a four decade old recording. It was as if the assembled masses were in my living room, between the speakers, with the orchestra and choir set a bit further back in my den. This is a singluar experience in my 35 years collecting LPs, reel to reel tapes, 8 tracks and CDs.
Not only is this the best SACD I know, it is twice as good as the only other Verdi Requiem recorded in SACD (Harnoncourt) and it is 100 times as good as the only other single disk version of the music in modern sound, the one recorded a few years ago led by Richard Hickox on the Chandos label.
I was nostalgic about this because I used to have the whole thing on a single cassette. I had no idea the performance, which has always been among my favorites, would be so reinvented by the SACD format. This is a historic recording in the very best sense now reinvented to compete with the best recordings of any vocal music in any venue.
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| Wonderful, but not multichannel (review from amazon.com) |
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| This a review mostly from the point of view of sound: A nice sense of ambience, but in (mere) stereo, a disappointment, since the Dies Irae would be one of the world's great multichannel experiences. This plays better on DSP derived multichannel than it does in SACD stereo, in my view. Also, not a hybrid, so requires a SACD player to play - a CD player won't play it. The bass drum in the Dies Irae is not as deep and overwhelming as it is on the Phillips label under the magnificent Gergiev, with Bocelli. If you want a Dies Irae to scare you with the true WRATH of God, the Phillips is for you. But then, with this Sony, you don't have to put up with Bocelli!
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| A moving, truly historic performance (review from amazon.com) |
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| Recorded in 1964, Ormandy, the Philadelphians and Richard Tucker were all at the zenith of their powers. This is an "old-fashioned" rendering of the Requiem, i.e., a non-period instruments recording (thank God), that instead underscores the power, muscle and raw emotions that run throughout the composition. The sound is magnificent, thanks to Sony's SACD technology -- when Tucker or any of the soloists (Lucine Amara, Maureen Forrester and George London) or the chorus are singing, it's as though you're sitting right on the stage with them. This is a magnificent recording! Buy it and enjoy.!
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