| Review by georgeflanagin June 19, 2009 (7 of 8 found this review helpful)
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ADHD Summary:
A markedly different approach to solving the Mendelssohn #2 problem; both less and more satisfactory than the old DoubleMint Gum, this recording is really two, two, two performances in one. The Sinfonia part lacks drama, and the choral 2/3rds makes up for it. In terms of enjoyable sound, performance, and a recording to study, it is satisfying, but audiophiles may not like it. To learn more about this paradox, please continue reading.
The Music:
As a critic once said of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mendelssohn's music also falls into two categories: the overplayed and the unknown. Symphony #2, "Lobgesang," is not exactly unknown, but if your classical collection is limited to various greatest hits, you probably have only #3 and #4, and perhaps #5. So what is Symphony #2?
Suppose you were /not/ Beethoven and /not/ Mahler, and you wrote a symphony with a choral finale. Suppose you got a little carried away with the choral parts. You might wind up with an enjoyable piece of music like Lobgesang that fits neatly into no category. The purely orchestral part is the first three movements lasting about 20-25 minutes, and the last movement consists of a whopping 40+ minutes that is a cantata. This is the opposite proportion compared with the Beethoven #9 or the Mahler #2.
The Performance:
The problem with Lobgesang is that the conductor must keep up the forward motion in symphony with a 12 minute first movement, that slows down during the next 12 minutes spanning two interior orchestral movements, and then heads into the main event. I have been a fan of Andrew Litton since his RPO recordings of the Rachmaninov symphonies twenty years ago, and I had hopes for a miracle. Since I had followed closely his career with Dallas, I knew him to be capable of miracles.
"Recorded live," as they say, I could tell within five seconds that this would be a performance unlike the others in my current collection of Lobgesangen. The initial tempo is a brisk walk rather than "maestoso con moto." Litton should have used the whip instead of the baton, and if the audience transfers energy to the performers, this must have been ocean liner filled with Richmonders in Norway. The sinfonia does not sound rushed, and it is free of wearying dramatic rubato, but it does not convey the sense that something great is coming.
Perhaps a cantata celebrating the printing press through oblique parallels with the Psalter is not "something great," but we know that /any/ finale should always be worthy of a build up. Especially given that this is a live recording, the lengthy finale is worth the wait. The mixed voices are quite good in the chorale "Nun danket all Gott," and Pregardien is up to scratch in his solos. I felt that Larmore was a little off her best vocal quality in her brief appearance in "Ich harrete des Herrn."
The finale of the finale is the sometimes separately performed "Irh Volker! bringet her dem Herrn Ehre und Macht!" and it is simply stunning. If you are looking for something with which to sell your hifi to a lover of choral music, this 5:33 makes the disc worth the price.
The recording:
BIS raised the bar quite some years ago when the first "Original Dynamics" recordings made their way into my collection. The first one that impressed me with the "BIS sound" was CD-266, a collection of pieces for various recorders and lute. Shortly thereafter, I picked up CD-23, with the Berg Sonata, and discovered they had known how to do this for some time. Transparent, unaffected recordings, very little compression, and with rock-solid imaging that was exaggerated only to the extent that the imaging in any good recording is exaggerated.
(Note: I have yet to hear any of the following in 5.0 or 5.1 channels)
Lately, starting with the Aho #12 (praised in this magazine by John Miller in his site review), I have noticed that there is tendency for BIS's recordings to not be up to what I expect. This is not universal -- BIS SACD-1519 which is the Schumann #2 and the original version of #4 is similar to the older generation of recordings. This recording of Lobgesang is really good, it just doesn't give you that feeling of "Wow, this has got to be one of those BIS discs." The chorus is miked with BIS-precision, but the orchestra is not.
I have played the pits off this disc the past couple of days, and during that time I came to feel that there was /less/ dynamic range in this recording than in others of the same piece. I got out the spectrum analyzer to test. A cursory glance at the display while playing back the Litton recording and the 1972 Karajan/BPO recording and the 2005 Chailly Decca recording indicates that I am probably correct. As soon as I determine a good way represent the information in pictures, I will take photos of the display and post them in the "Sailing Ships" section of georgeflanagin.com
Bottom Line:
I vote for Karajan/BPO 1972 for the best performance of the sinfonia, and this as possibly the best for the cantata. With changers and iPods, we can have the both of best worlds.
(c) 2009 George Flanagin
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| Review by rwconner June 19, 2009 (9 of 12 found this review helpful)
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I have to say I was very disappointed, and the somewhat cautionary reviews to this date did not give me enough pause. The effort to reproduce a concert-hall audition probably accounts for a lot of the problem. Yes, it is what one might hear in a long, narrow concert hall if one were sitting half-way back under the second balcony. The reason those seats are cheap is because it is hard to hear the soloists. The tenor's voice in his dramatic sequence "Stricke des Todes" is constantly muffled by the orchestra, even when it's striving for pp. To have this turning point made virtually inaudible and unintelligible is a travesty, abetted by what I consider by directoral judgment.
And then you don't have to be an audiophile to regret that the entire orchestra is condensed into an aural zone of about 15%--as I said, it must have been a long, narrow hall that the producers were imagining. Why bother with SACD if you're not going to maximize its salient ability to define aural space?
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Sonics: 
