The Classical Music Guide Forums

...to purchase a recording of beethoven's 'missa solemnis'. i've not listened to that in a long while.

advise me what to get. i'm thinking klemperer, but i don't really know.

thanx
dj

...there are many other recordings. And I'm sure you'll get plenty of advise on all the Greatest Recordings by the Greatest Conductors and the Very Best Singers and Choirs...I just want to inform you that on Harmonia Mundi you can find an interesting alternative...:
CD / Harmonia Mundi / Harmonia Mundi (HMX 2901557)

Rosa Mannion (sopr.); Birgit Remmert (mezzo); James Taylor (tenor); Cornelius Hauptmann (bas); Collegium Vocale Gent, Koor van La Chapelle Royale, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées; Philippe Herreweghe (dir.)

Fortunately, your choices are many. While the work has never been my most favourite by Beethoven, he (and many others) have considered it his magnum opus.

I have quite a few recordings, including live performances with the legendary Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Outside of that box, I would recommend three, two historical, the third not:

• BBC Legends 4016 [2 CDs] - with Thorborg, Milanov, Moscona (all great Toscanini collaborators), and the set includes Beethoven's 7th Symphony, Mozart's Symphony #35 - all live with the BBC Symphony Orchestra [Historical].
• OR - RCA 60272 [2 CDs] - with Marshall, Merriman, Hines, Conley. The chorus is conducted by Robert Shaw, who was supreme in any choral music [Historical].
• Telarc 80150 [2 CDs] - w/McNair, Taylor, Aler, T. Krause, soloists with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which is coupled with Mozart's C Minor ("Great") Mass. Here, Robert Shaw does everything, conduct the orchestra and directs the chorus. This will surely go down in history as one of the finest modern-day recordings.

Double-check catalogue numbers. Recordings are being reissued so fast these days that it's hard to keep track.

david johnson wrote:...to purchase a recording of beethoven's 'missa solemnis'. i've not listened to that in a long while.

advise me what to get. i'm thinking klemperer, but i don't really know.

thanx
dj

My advice is to stick with your initial thought and get the Klemperer, which has long been my favorite recording of the Missa. The chorus are the stars in this piece; not the soloists or orchestra, and the Philharmonia Chorus does a wonderful job for Klemperer.

Klemperer is good, but my favorites are the two Bernsteins. Another fave of mine is one no one else will tell you about--Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch. I wouldn't recommend this last as anyone's only Missa Solemnis, but it emphasizes the role of the soloists and has a lovely, charming, quiet chamber music quality about it at times. For a HIP performance, the Gardiner is good, too.

I like Masur & the Gewandhaus in the set of symphonies I've got, so I'd give them a spin for the Missa solemnis

I recommend the von Karjan on DG Galleria with Fritz Wunderlich, Christa Ludwig, and Walter Berry. Some high powered talent that. The disc also has Mozart's Coronation Mass, a wonderfully zesty work.

Telarc 80150 [2 CDs] - w/McNair, Taylor, Aler, T. Krause, soloists with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which is coupled with Mozart's C Minor ("Great") Mass. Here, Robert Shaw does everything, conduct the orchestra and directs the chorus. This will surely go down in history as one of the finest modern-day recordings

that's the one i got. 2 for one of things i didn't have. think i'll dabble with otto's a little later.
thanx for the advice, my listening friends.

dj

david johnson

i'm thinking klemperer, but i don't really know.

I prefer Klemperer, with his prodigious sense of the architecture of the work and his spiritual dimension. The soloists are also very good (but not superior to those of Karajan's version for DGG).
The version of Gardiner is not as dense as Klemperer (here, I don't know if it is a quality), with a good articulation, more contrasts, more colour, but - in my opinion- also superficial, as if the Missa Solemnis was, more than everything, a decorative "fresque".