Search - Mozart, Kwella, Groenewold :: Mozart: Coronation Mass/ Missa Solemnis

Distant recording for historical reasons

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 01/01/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Peter Neumann?s 1988 recording for EMI Electrola, made at the ?Deutschlandfunk? (the old West German national radio station) in Cologne, seems to be an attempt to re-create the original performance of the ?Coronation Mass? at Salzburg Cathedral during the Easter celebrations of 1779. The Collegium Cartusianum (boasting a number of well-known musicians from the Cologne-Basel early music axis) does entirely without violas as is thought to have been the case at Salzburg in Mozart?s time, and the instrumental forces are reduced to five each of first and second violins, two cellos and one double bass (plus the usual pairs of bassoons, trumpets and horns and three trombones, timpani and organ). As historical research has proved fairly conclusively that the singers and instrumentalists were placed in four different galleries of the cathedral, the recording engineers have moved the microphones well away from the participants, which does, as the liner notes assert, yield a very blended sound, but I must add that this is at the expense of clarity: alto and bass soloists Ulla Groenewald and Franz-Josef Selig can barely be heard at all, and the whole impression of listening at some distance is unusual and a little disconcerting. Having said that, the performance is very good indeed, and there are some delightful passages in the winds and a lovely ?Agnus Dei? with Patrizia Kwella in fine form. The main emphasis is, of course, on the choir, but unfortunately the liner notes offer no information whatsoever concerning the Kölner Kammerchor (Cologne Chamber Choir), although from listening it seems obvious that it is a comparatively small choir with female sopranos. The ?Missa Solemnis?, composed a year later than the ?Coronation Mass? (the name of which appears to have originated from its use by Antonio Salieri at the coronation of the Emperor in Vienna some years later), is mainly a choral affair and is subject to the same concept in the performance given here.



I was able to compare and contrast the ?Coronation Mass? with the recording made of the same piece two years later by Christopher Hogwood for Decca?s now-defunct early music label L?Oiseau-Lyre. Hogwood uses larger instrumental forces in the strings (seven each of first and second violins, five violas, four celli, three double basses) and a larger choir, in which he uses boy trebles instead of female sopranos (the Winchester College Quiristers join with Winchester Cathedral Choir). The sound is fuller and recorded with more transparency and directness; the soloists (and here particularly the heavenly Emma Kirkby) are placed more in the foreground and can be heard much more distinctly. The fullness of sound may not be quite so strictly authentic as on the Neumann production, but it produces more excitement in the choral and orchestral passages and allows one to hear and enjoy the singing somewhat better than the EMI recording which sounds, in the end, rather like one would expect a radio broadcast to sound. Hogwood has also chosen a different ?Epistle Sonata? to follow the Gloria, and his tempi are, as one might expect, a little different from Neumann?s, although the variations are not really significant.



In the end, I would say that although the Neumann/EMI is a good period-performance recording, it cannot really match the superiority of the Decca recording combined with Christopher Hogwood?s superb choral forces. Emma Kirkby as soprano soloist is also unbeatable; the other soloists are about equal on both recordings, but Neumann?s sound concept gives the Hogwood CD the advantage. The Hogwood/Decca recording is complemented by the Vesperae Solennes de Confessore K. 339, a delightful setting of five psalms and the Magnificat.

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