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Discussion: Beethoven: Mass in C - Sir Colin Davis

Posts: 2

Post by Luukas August 20, 2014 (1 of 2)
At last, Beethoven's early masterwork, Mass in C on SACD! What a pleasure! I heard John Eliot Gardiner's recording with The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique long time ago, but this is much better!

Post by Chris August 21, 2014 (2 of 2)
Luukas said:

At last, Beethoven's early masterwork, Mass in C on SACD! What a pleasure! I heard John Eliot Gardiner's recording with The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique long time ago, but this is much better!

Imo,it is quite good interpretatively.But the recording from the constricted "dry as dust" Barbican is frankly yet another example of what a really bad venue it is for large scale music involving both an orchestra and choir.
For a much better version of this actually very good Mass,which In some parts at least is not far behind the more famous and even greater Missa Solemnis,I would recommend Carlo Maria Giulini and the New Philharmonia with soloists like Ameling and Janet Baker on an EMI LP from the mid 60s.
Even better played and sung and recorded in a big reverberant churchlike acoustic where both orchestra,soloist and choir have space to breathe and sing without any of the dry boxy sound of this SACD.
There is more to recording great works than employing "high density recording technology".Far more important is a really good suitable venue and good miking.
I hear little of either from this SACD.
But plenty of air from an LP from the mid-sixties.
And frankly neither of the soloists here can compete with Elly Ameling or Janet Baker imo.

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