"This is good but be aware that the German mass on this recording was recorded in 1962 and the rest of the masses in 1978. The sound quality isn't the best in the world but I'm sure to most people it will be tolerable. It's just that after hearing such good quality new recordings it's kind of hard to stomach an old analog recording.
The performance is good, probably not the best though. The singers seem to really over power the instruments. some times the instruments just seem a little small. There is some background noise just like on most recordings but it's nothing terrible.
I actually recommend the Brilliant Classics Schubert Masses. The sound quality is much better in that box set and it only costs a couple of dollars more."
Possibly Schubert's most intimate work!
G. Shkodra | Montreal, Canada | 10/06/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"These masses are Schubert's hymn-like works with an enormous melodic charm. He composed part of them to texts of Johann Philip Neumann, who was a professor at the Vienna Polytechnical Institute, and they were intended for use by the students congregation at that Institute. He finished the first mass when he was only 17 and the last one just a few months before he died, so his masses, the latin as well as his german ones, really span over a relatively long time of the creative part of his career.
Technically speaking these masses seem easy, but they surely rank among Franz Schubert's best works. They certainly constitute a very mature body of work, most part of which written by the great composer towards the end of his short but very prolific life. The choral part is not overly complex, and so is the orchestral one. To me the beauty of these works is in the interaction between choral, solos and orchestral sections. Sometimes a simple work can be magnificent.
I'm not a regular churchgoer, but just like another reviewer here at Amazon.com, I happened to attend a few masses in Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg, Germany, more than a decade ago. Masses in german and english, the softly spoken magic spell accompanied by Schubert's masses. What a blissful atmosphere! When I think about it, it's very difficult to describe that feeling now, but I guess "intimate" would be the word that comes closest to it."
Franz Schubert's "Deutsche Messe"
Ursula | Waco, Texas | 06/16/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I have listened to the "Deutsche Messe" over and over again. I also had the rare opportunity to be at a mass in a church in Germany where an orchestra played Franz Schubert's "Deutsche Messe". Wow! What an experience! The music pieces have so much depths and devotion in them. You can close your eyes and feel what Franz Schubert must have felt."
Unbelievable!
Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 07/28/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Unbelievably bad, that is! The sound quality is hideous, as if the single microphone had been swathed in compost. The instruments, when they can be distinguished from the general rumble, are nearly unrecognizable. Choirs are the hardest thing to record effectively anyway, but this recording failed more painfully than most.
However, it wouldn't have mattered, since the performance is totally flawed, inept, misbegotten. The sopranos and altos, especially soprano Eva Csapo, are so consistently out of tune that I have to suppose they didn't know any better. They quaver shrilly like a loose fan belt in a 1950s jalopy. The conductor, Martin Behrman, wallows in the thickest sludge of spent romanticism. Choir and instruments are all just a feed lot bellow of noise.
And that's a shame. A waste, not only of my money and my listening time, but also of an opportunity to introduce another facet of the brilliance of Franz Schubert to the public. I'm sure there are devoted Schubert fans, people who love the piano songs and symphonies, who aren't even aware that Schubert composed seven masses over the course of his short life. The masses reveal a lot about their composer. For instance, in the Latin masses, the phrase "unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam" is conspicuously omitted from the Credo. Schubert in effect denied the rightfulness of "one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", which of course meant that his masses could never be used in Roman Catholic worship. They were "unsellable" therefore. Was Schubert a Christian believer? His friends didn't consider him one. It's an interesting question, but listening to these performances will NOT suggest any answer."