This is a tasteful, polished, and well-sung Creation (in German). Its notable weakness is surely baritone Dietrich Henschel’s unappealing timbre as the archangel Raphael, but even he’s not terrible. The problem is that if you want this work on period instruments, all of the versions listed above are more colorful in the recitatives, grander in the choruses, and just as good or better in the arias. Christie’s chorus and orchestra sound a touch small and inhibited, and his conducting, at least comparatively, comes across as just a little bit perfunctory. Consider, for example, the chorus “Achieved is the Glorious Work”, which closes Part 2. At the end of the fugue, just before the final “alleluia”, most conductors will give a touch of characterful rhetorical emphasis to the dissonances in the brass, either through accentuation or by making a slight ritard (or both). Not here. Christie plows straight through to the end, and while the result is certainly lively enough, the comparison to more interestingly inflected and more powerful versions is telling. In sum, this is a respectable effort, well-recorded, but with so much competition readily available it’s just not the best you can do.
