BRAHMS: Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 – Genia Kuehmeier, soprano /Thomas Hampson, baritone/Arnold Schoenberg Choir /Wiener Philharmoniker/ Nikolaus Harnoncourt – RCA Red Seal 88697720662, 72:01 [Distr. by Sony] ****:
Recorded December 2007 in the Musikverein, Vienna, Austria, Brahms’ German Requiem under Nikolaus Harnoncourt (b. 1929) challenges the usual conceptions of the work on two counts: first, the realization does not succumb to the temptation of ponderously heavenly length, the legacy of conductors Fritz Lehmann, Klaus Tennstedt, Sergiu Celibidache, and even my beloved late colleague David Randolph. Second, Harnoncourt has removed any vocal residue from the chorus’ enunciation and produced a vocal sound of utmost clarity of the German diction which, given Harnoncourt’s emphasis on the music’s motet affinities, creates an extraordinary hybrid for both mass and intimacy. Harnoncourt seems to permitted his VPO timpanist full sway in the course of the music’s more insistent passages, often slowing the tempo deliberately to reinforce the hammer blows of especial cadences.
The singular contribution of baritone Thomas Hampson deserves notice, his deeply somber meditation in the third movement, “Herr, lehre doch mich,” resonant with inner pain and doubt, and reminiscent of a performance Tom Krause rendered some thirty years ago. The VPO woodwinds and brass add a layered clarity to the proceedings, and then the huge pedal point of D that culminates what would pass as the Sanctus section of the traditional Latin Mass. A plus occurs in the second movement, in that Harnoncourt adjusts the otherwise somber march tempo to something like an aerial march-waltz, perhaps underlining the ephemeral nature of the flesh. Soprano Kuehmeier may not possess the natural coloratura of a Schwarzkopf or Seefried, but her “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit” projects both intellect and diaphanous poise.
Where Harnoncourt excels lies in the fugal sections of movements two and six, again because his dominant affect insists on the “antique” nature of the sound, with the trombones and trumpets often invoking a striking, even shining, sense of the Last Trump. One might quibble with RCA’s microphone placement, which does impose a distant haze occasionally on the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, where Klemperer and Karajan achieved sonic intimidation with their respective choruses. The opening string figures and the female chorus’ entry for the last movement “Selig die Toten”–with its allusion to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion–has the golden delicacy and veiled serenity we would otherwise associate with another’s Requiem, that of Gabriel Faure. The precise work of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir must accept our reverence, especially their capacity for long-held phrases and the ability to waft and undulate through a serpentine Brahms line. If the details become precious or fussy, it seems acceptable in the name of an extraordinary lucidity of purpose. Reverent and idiosyncratic without having become “deconstructionist” or pedantic, this Brahms Requiem will reward repeated auditions.
— Gary Lemco
William Steinberg conducts Mahler Symphony No. 1 – Boston Symphony Orchestra – Forgotten Records
Excellent mid-century live performance of Mahler’s First
