Berlioz: Grand Messe des Morts by Sir Thomas Beecham/RPO

Berlioz: Grand Messe des Morts

Richard Lewis, tenor
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir
Sir Thomas Beecham

BBC 4011-2

Benchmark recording: Munch/BSO, Robert Shaw/ASO (from popular opinions)

Note to listeners. If you're trying to pick your first recording of Berlioz' Requiem, you may want to invest with more costlier recordings out there if you want top notch digital recording. The famous Dies Irae here suffers from lack of impact due to obvious recording quality. Live performance = 1950s = mono = not very good. Only seasoned listeners who can bear mono quality recordings deserve to listen to this recording. Not that it is bad one.

The Beecham recording here is one of the cheapest (single CD) and regularly acclaimed by critics as one of benchmark recordings of Berlioz Requeim. That is understandable. The choir members are still warming up to the work by the first movement, but then they got down to business by "Quid sum Miser". Sir Thomas Beecham's choir gets into the mysterious but pessimistic nature of the Requeim by subsequent moments. Perhaps as the recording limitations shown, the choir suffers from some distortions, especially when the sopranos sing the high pitches of the work and Lacrymosa, a bizarre burlesque piece which can be a conductor's nightmare with it's 9/8 signature. Due to recording quality (again) the movement sounds a little muddled, nevertheless pleasantly pulled off well by Sir Beecham, particular the brilliant climax.

Quarens Me perhaps highlight the beauty of the choirs here, as composed "a capella" by Berlioz without the orchestra. Another great highlight is "Hostias" where the effects of solo flute and trombone chords is hauntingly effective. Tenor Richard Lewis sings well, but whereas for the women, there are minor pitch problems plaguing the Sanctus.

I'm not a fan of Berlioz requiem to note. If you have chance to test this recording, do so if you insist on buying.

Update: There is a recent SACD release of Munch's classic Boston Symphony recording of the same work with often-criticized sound improved and sold 2 CDs with a single SACD price. I recommend anyone interested in the Requeim to grab it, even for those without SACD players. The hybrid SACD is playable on all standard CD players.

Technical: 8
Interpretation: 9
Recording: 6

First review of the day: Zander's Mahler Fourth

Mahler: Symphony no 4


Camilla Tilling (soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Benjamin Zander

Benchmark recording: Szell/Cleveland (Sony)



Among all of Mahler's symphonies, the Fourth is described as his most accessible symphony. It tends to dwell onto more neoclassical side, and this symphony is often compared to Ninth Symphony in Shostakovich's cycle. Why? This symphony is least troubled of all his symphonies, like the Ninth symphony of Shostakovich a breath of fresh air from political nihislism and doom of previous symphonies. Yet there are still lingering doubts and shadowy figures typical of Mahler schizophrenia in the this work.

There seems to be alternating sequences for the first movement. One, a neo-classical tribute to Haydn and another sequence which is similar, but more sinister in fashion. As I understand from Tony Duggan's analysis, it is an examination of nature in childish perception. We have to understand this symphony is composed over a "leftover" from the Third Symphony, "Das Himmlische Leben" or The Heavenly Life. This song, taken from Mahler's Wunderhorn cycle talks of a life in Heaven, where there's plenty of food in Heaven where there's vegetables of every shapes and kind, fishes will swim up to your lap when you're hungry and there's not even objection at slaughters of heavenly sheeps. "Das Himmlische Leben" is probably a sequel to another song in Wunderhorn cycle where the little boy who longs for bread died as soon as his mother finished baking it. I would interpret it as an antithesis from the "death" themes which fascinates and haunt Mahler at the same time.

I had witnessed three recordings beforehand, Rafael Kubelik and his Bavarian Band from DG, Lorin Maazel teamed with stunning Kathleen Battle with Vienna Philharmonic and Bernstein's DG account with Concertgebouw if I'm not mistaken with a boy soprano. I am sorry to say I didn't exactly warmed up to either recordings as they sound rather the least interesting of Mahler's symphonies. That is until I borrowed this recording from my friend, Hock Doong.

I attended Benjamin Zander's talk on Mahler two years ago when he was invited to conduct Mahler Ninth for Malaysian Philharmonic. I asked him who is his favorite Mahler conductor and after some hesitation, he replied Jascha Horenstein. It is no wonder Horenstein's traits are present on the work, the minute details of the score exposed like a surgeon's unfliching exposure of body parts in an autopsy. Some complain of the lack of architecture of cohorence compared to two recordings I mentioned above. The previous recordings I listened to had continuous momentum of a Bruckner symphony, yet I feel as if I was merely strolling through the work. Observing animals in a national park compared to watching them on Discovery channel has big differences and Zander's approach is more towards the latter. Perhaps the only flaw Zander possessed in this recording is some excessive stretching of rubato and ritartando. The slowing down after the each "jingle bells" call on flute and bells seemed to stretched a bit too far, but fortunately not excessive to a point of self-indulgence.

The Scherzo is unique in sense that I challenge to see if there's any recording that could top that. Christopher Warren-Green's violin solo sounds very puppet-like and the whole movement sounds like a narration from a Grimm fairy tales book. Not surprising if this is the most chilling account here.

Zander's third movement mirrors that of Third Symphony's Adagio and I am reminded of Horenstein's spiritually moving account. Here it seems no different either. When the big climax came where the gates of Heaven is revealed, you could really feel you've gained first glimpse of an awesome vista. This, in my opinion, is a childish astonishment and discovery of glimpse of Heaven. Wonderful harp glissando here and wonderful thumping from the timpani, the movement gradually subsides peacefully to the last movement. Camillia Tilling is the perfect soprano here. Zander avoided the pitfalls that maybe a difficult criteria for choosing a singer here. Kubelik's Elsie Morrison is too mature and Bernstein...for the love of God Mahler did mention to avoid boy sopranos didn't he? Zander was guilty similarly in a performance sometime ago, but thank IPU he did not.

There will be always debates whether which soprano is the most perfect singer for Das Himmlische Leben or whether the violin solo in Scherzo is menacing or too over the top. I have yet to listen to George Szell or Paul Kletzki's recordings respectively. My friend Hock Doong should have the Szell recording and after I finish listening, the review will be up. The bonus lecture CD seemed to be least interesting despite his insightful lecture on Wunderhorn elements of this symphony. This is my personal choice for THE recording of Mahler's Fourth um, period.

Technical: 9
Interpretation: 9
Recording: 9

For my criteria of reviews, Technical(orchestral/soloist playing) and Interpretation (vision) are two intriguing points here. Some critics are notorious for shifting blame entirely towards the conductor for lapses of playing, particularly Jascha Horenstein. It is one thing to be Simon Cowell, but we're talking about individuals controlling at least 30-40 players here! We do not even know if the maestro had time rehearsing the work properly. Karl Bohm's Ein Heldenleben is example of a great intrepretation of what seemed to be the most narcisstic work of Richard Strauss. The playing compared with Rudolph Kempe of the same orchestra (Dresden) seemed sloppy, but Kempe's vision is too straightfoward and sterile. I don't need to mention there are too many "perfect" orchestral recordings today that are forgettable in their vision.

In my list, there's very, very few recordings that merits perfect 10/10/10 and most obvious would be Callas/Di Stefano/De Sabata recording of Tosca. I am also fond of Reiner/CSO recording of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and the Pines+Fountains of Rome by Respighi which has perfect vision, chilling orchestral playing and BEST recording remastering (how many stereo recordings of late 50s can sound that good?). Reviews will be posted as well. Keep reading!

Introduction

This blogsite will consists of my rants and reviews about everything in classical music. That is not to say exclusively, but there would also be rants on rock, jazz and anything that is not spinned out from MTV garbage although my main focus would be on classical music.

I had been listening to classical music since the age of eighth and I buy average of 2 CDs per month. I've had great luck and oppurtunity, thanks to a good friend of mine who is president of MalaysianMahlerites, as well as other classical music fans - sharing their records with me. My core composers are Mahler and Bruckner, not surprising trend these days, but that only in core sense that there's a lot to discuss from these composers. Yes, Mahler is still the current cult thing. There's so much jolly and fun discussing who's the best conductor, what's the holy grail recording, how would one approach his scruptulous demands on score, ambigous tempo changes, to usual fanatical obsession on his biography and aspects of life. But there's more than that, do we?

I am 22 years old, and compared to more seasoned albeit older reviewers who may be half a decades more older, I come to be more inexperienced. My music credientials is sparse to say at least, grade five in theory and practical in flute. I do have some experiences on conducting - an amateur orchestra. But I'll be damned to keep quiet on my rants on music. There will be time after 20 years, I write better, more unbiased, more concise, more scholarly reputable articles/reviews and obviously better English. But the hell should I care? Also if any of you can't dig my rants, there's always plenty of other reviewers to read, Amazon.com has plenty. Also some other sites:

Musicweb, formerly Musicweb UK(contains the famous Tony Duggan Mahler recordings survey): www.musicweb-international.com

The most comprehensive (and not necessarily best site out there) classical music reviews site:
www.classicstoday.com

Peter Gutmann's Classical Notes webby (contains comprehensive biographies and articles on Bernstein, Furtwangler and Celibidache): www.classicalnotes.net

Singapore's premier site on classical music and other arts: www.inkpot.com

Classical Music Guide (with forum): http://www.classicalmusicguide.com/rreviews/rreviews.htm

and finally you can always do good work by surving on Google, best damn thing on web. Just enter: + reviews and click.