Monthly Archive: June 2012

14 More High-Resolution Stereo Download Reviews

by John Sunier | Jun 13, 2012 | Special Features

MAHLER:  Symphony No. 8 – Heather Harper soprano I (Magna Peccatrix);  Lucia Popp soprano II (Una Poenitentium);  Arleen Auger soprano III (Mater Gloriosa);  Yvonne Minton contralto I (Mulier Samaritana);  Helen Watts contralto II (Maria Aegyptiaca);  René Kollo tenor (Doctor Marianus);   John Shirley-Quirk baritone (Pater Ecstaticus);  Martti Talvela bass (Pater Profundus) /Vienna Staatsopernchor /Vienna Singverein /Vienna Sängerknaben /Chicago Sym. Orch./  Sir Georg Solti – Decca 24/96 download UNI 005 – 80:00 ****: Recorded in the Sofiensaal, Vienna during August and September 1971,  Sir Georg Solti’s orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, together with the various choirs and some of the top soloists of the day were captured in excellent analogue sound.  Conductor and orchestra were on a European tour and it seemed a very good idea to add to Solti’s Mahler cycle a recording made in a venue famed for its sonic splendour.  It’s now over forty years ago that the tapes were running; the problems of getting one and all together for the sessions have been well documented, and were almost as fraught as for Klemperer’s recording of Das Lied von der Erde.  Solti, though not the most loved of conductors in some quarters (including the Vienna Philharmonic’s chairman and committee […]