B Minor Mass
Posted by: u5227470736789439 on 12 February 2007
Dear Friends,
Among the chaos of last Thursday's snow in the UK MIidlands, while waiting for an aeroplane to land, I found myself with a couple of hours to fill, and went into HMV in Birmingham.
I was quite sad at the state of the repertoire and range of performances now stocked. It seemed much sparer than the last time I was there.
As usual I dived into the JS Bach section, finding the ubiquitous Glenn Gould and Yo Yo Ma, and in fact whole sections filled with multiple copies of the same disc...
Then I found a very special issue indeed. The B Minor Mass with the following performers recorded [live in front of an invited and silent audience] in Broadcasting House in 1951:
Suzanne Danco [soprano]
Kathleen Ferrier [alto]
Peter Pears [tenor]
Bruce Boyce [baritone]
Norman Walker [bass]
Charles Spinks [organ]
George Malcolm [harpsichord]
Boyd Neel Orchestra
BBC Chorus
George Enescu [conductor]
Obviously this was rather an exciting find. George Ensecu was not only one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, but a phenomenal Bachian. My hopes were not to be dashed. Firstly the non-musical issues. The recording is always adequaute, and in the arias very beautiful. The original BBC Transcription Acetates were obviously still in good condition, and only the very big dynamic of the Choruses come close to straining the recording mechanism. The actual recording is completely without any sense of accoustic space, which is very fine for listening into the counterpoint, and yet the Concert Hall in Broadcasting House is obviously high and the effect is never compressed or harsh, so the balances between lines are far clearer than any modern recording I have come across.
____________
The first thing that struck me was that Enescu gets the professional singers of the BBC Chorus, about the 35 to 40 I would think, to sing with a very un-Anglican fervour, sounding rather like a central European Roman Catholic Choir! This is singing with guts, fervour, and spirituality, and about as far as you could get from the Monteverdi Choir for example. A blessed relief in my book! Also the Choir has very fine intonation, which was not always the case in older live performances from this time and earlier.
Immediately the scene is set in the opening Kyrie for a long breathed performance, an exprssive reading, but not a romantic one, or with any sense of hanging fire or dragging... The tension builds over very long arches, and the greatest arch is the one that welds the whole piece into one compelling whole. Even Klemperer does not get a more cohesive sense of momentum in his recording.
By the time the Credo arrives the strength of the conception is not in doubt and the concentration only continues to grow. The whole section is as variageted as the words, so that 'Et resurexit tertia die' comes as a blaze of sunlight and joy after the supplicant 'Crucifixus...' and the [I always think rather odd setting for Chorus and bald continuo] setting of the first half of 'Confetitor unum baptisma' for once makes perfect sense, leading wonderfully into the bright trumpets and timps scoring of the second half.
Then come a monumentally forward moving Santus, where the drive is perhaps that of the imagined striding of God Himself among the celestial places. The 'Osanna' carries this forward, so that one wonders what can be left to follow... The trump as it happens, or more so a double trump.
Peter Pears was a singer that I tend to find ocassionally not so very much my favourite tenor. For example I much prefer Anton Dermota [Viennese] in the Evangelist in the Saint Matthew Passion to Pears realisation for Klemperer.
But here his contribution defies criticism. The stylish aspect is beyond criticism, and the conception and expression show a complete grasp of the music, and the meaning of the words. The CDs are worth the asking price for this alone, and then come Ferrier in the 'Agnus Dei.' Any attempt at analysing what is great about this is pointless. Let me just say that her famous Decca recording of Eight Sacred Arias by Bach and Handel is wonderful, but this is something even more stageringly wonderful!
'Dona Nobis Pacem' [Chorus] is then brought out with a certainty and strength, even if this certainty must at that time have seemed to exists only after death, that again shows that this performance at every stage of its progression takes the music as a framework to bring out the meaning of the words. The correct priority in my view, and unfashionable enough, nowadays...
So it may sound to some like a performance a rather long way from today's techical perfection, and all too frequent seeming embarrassment by the words' meaning [who wants to admit to actually being religeous these days?], so prevalent in modern HIP style readings, and yet ths performance is as correct in matter of style - graces, trills and size of forces used etc - as any today. This is not a huge arthritic Leviathan, but a virile, spiritual traversal of one of the greatest musical peaks in Western Art.
It will be relief to read that the organ is not large, and the sharing of the continuo keyboard duties with the harsichord is wonderfully judged. There is controversy about whether a harpsichord should be used at all, but this shows a natural and successful solution to the need for a diminuitive sonority in parts and a sustained one elsewhere, such as in the 'Confetitor unum baptisma...' In the 'Domine Deus' I have never heard the integration of continuo so beautiful as with the rather quiet pizz 'double bass and 'cello' with harpsichord very quietuy and successfully auguenmenting the gentle sustain of small organ pipes, while the main focus remains rightly on the soli and the flauto.
In my view it is the most wonderful performance of the B Minor Mass I have listened to outside a Church. This is surely already my record of the year for 2007...
Ariadne 5000-2 [Two CD set for £10 in HMV] Ariadne is a division of Somm Recordings. [Mono from acetates, not a hifi recording, but well balanced and clear].
Kindest regards from Fredrik
Among the chaos of last Thursday's snow in the UK MIidlands, while waiting for an aeroplane to land, I found myself with a couple of hours to fill, and went into HMV in Birmingham.
I was quite sad at the state of the repertoire and range of performances now stocked. It seemed much sparer than the last time I was there.
As usual I dived into the JS Bach section, finding the ubiquitous Glenn Gould and Yo Yo Ma, and in fact whole sections filled with multiple copies of the same disc...
Then I found a very special issue indeed. The B Minor Mass with the following performers recorded [live in front of an invited and silent audience] in Broadcasting House in 1951:
Suzanne Danco [soprano]
Kathleen Ferrier [alto]
Peter Pears [tenor]
Bruce Boyce [baritone]
Norman Walker [bass]
Charles Spinks [organ]
George Malcolm [harpsichord]
Boyd Neel Orchestra
BBC Chorus
George Enescu [conductor]
Obviously this was rather an exciting find. George Ensecu was not only one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, but a phenomenal Bachian. My hopes were not to be dashed. Firstly the non-musical issues. The recording is always adequaute, and in the arias very beautiful. The original BBC Transcription Acetates were obviously still in good condition, and only the very big dynamic of the Choruses come close to straining the recording mechanism. The actual recording is completely without any sense of accoustic space, which is very fine for listening into the counterpoint, and yet the Concert Hall in Broadcasting House is obviously high and the effect is never compressed or harsh, so the balances between lines are far clearer than any modern recording I have come across.
____________
The first thing that struck me was that Enescu gets the professional singers of the BBC Chorus, about the 35 to 40 I would think, to sing with a very un-Anglican fervour, sounding rather like a central European Roman Catholic Choir! This is singing with guts, fervour, and spirituality, and about as far as you could get from the Monteverdi Choir for example. A blessed relief in my book! Also the Choir has very fine intonation, which was not always the case in older live performances from this time and earlier.
Immediately the scene is set in the opening Kyrie for a long breathed performance, an exprssive reading, but not a romantic one, or with any sense of hanging fire or dragging... The tension builds over very long arches, and the greatest arch is the one that welds the whole piece into one compelling whole. Even Klemperer does not get a more cohesive sense of momentum in his recording.
By the time the Credo arrives the strength of the conception is not in doubt and the concentration only continues to grow. The whole section is as variageted as the words, so that 'Et resurexit tertia die' comes as a blaze of sunlight and joy after the supplicant 'Crucifixus...' and the [I always think rather odd setting for Chorus and bald continuo] setting of the first half of 'Confetitor unum baptisma' for once makes perfect sense, leading wonderfully into the bright trumpets and timps scoring of the second half.
Then come a monumentally forward moving Santus, where the drive is perhaps that of the imagined striding of God Himself among the celestial places. The 'Osanna' carries this forward, so that one wonders what can be left to follow... The trump as it happens, or more so a double trump.
Peter Pears was a singer that I tend to find ocassionally not so very much my favourite tenor. For example I much prefer Anton Dermota [Viennese] in the Evangelist in the Saint Matthew Passion to Pears realisation for Klemperer.
But here his contribution defies criticism. The stylish aspect is beyond criticism, and the conception and expression show a complete grasp of the music, and the meaning of the words. The CDs are worth the asking price for this alone, and then come Ferrier in the 'Agnus Dei.' Any attempt at analysing what is great about this is pointless. Let me just say that her famous Decca recording of Eight Sacred Arias by Bach and Handel is wonderful, but this is something even more stageringly wonderful!
'Dona Nobis Pacem' [Chorus] is then brought out with a certainty and strength, even if this certainty must at that time have seemed to exists only after death, that again shows that this performance at every stage of its progression takes the music as a framework to bring out the meaning of the words. The correct priority in my view, and unfashionable enough, nowadays...
So it may sound to some like a performance a rather long way from today's techical perfection, and all too frequent seeming embarrassment by the words' meaning [who wants to admit to actually being religeous these days?], so prevalent in modern HIP style readings, and yet ths performance is as correct in matter of style - graces, trills and size of forces used etc - as any today. This is not a huge arthritic Leviathan, but a virile, spiritual traversal of one of the greatest musical peaks in Western Art.
It will be relief to read that the organ is not large, and the sharing of the continuo keyboard duties with the harsichord is wonderfully judged. There is controversy about whether a harpsichord should be used at all, but this shows a natural and successful solution to the need for a diminuitive sonority in parts and a sustained one elsewhere, such as in the 'Confetitor unum baptisma...' In the 'Domine Deus' I have never heard the integration of continuo so beautiful as with the rather quiet pizz 'double bass and 'cello' with harpsichord very quietuy and successfully auguenmenting the gentle sustain of small organ pipes, while the main focus remains rightly on the soli and the flauto.
In my view it is the most wonderful performance of the B Minor Mass I have listened to outside a Church. This is surely already my record of the year for 2007...
Ariadne 5000-2 [Two CD set for £10 in HMV] Ariadne is a division of Somm Recordings. [Mono from acetates, not a hifi recording, but well balanced and clear].
Kindest regards from Fredrik