Before Herbert Blomstedt’s stellar version with the San Francisco Symphony & Chorus, my favorite Brahms’ German Requiem was the 1969 RCA recording with Erich Leinsdorf and Boston–because I was in it, as a New England Conservatory Chorus member, and I still believe it has the best soloists in the young Sherrill Milnes and a seasoned Montserrat Caballé (even though she performed with a terrible cold). Unfortunately, that recording never was afforded a decent CD transfer and is no longer available. Shameless biases aside, in the years since the Blomstedt/San Francisco release (1995), nothing has come along to seriously challenge it–although each new offering nearly always has some, or many, redeeming qualities, especially John Eliot Gardiner’s exciting, moving, gorgeously sung, skillfully paced, often-revelatory “period-instrument” version with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (Philips). And here’s another contender that brings much pleasure but ultimately falls short, primarily owing to the weird mannerisms of Frieder Bernius, a conductor whose work I normally admire.
He’s certainly blessed with a fine choir–make that a first rate choir, with an orchestra to match. There’s absolutely nothing to complain about regarding the standard of singing and playing in this live performance. The 60-voice choir is responsive and well-rehearsed and makes a wonderful, full-bodied sound in the tuttis and also is capable of delicate shading and really soft pianissimos. Likewise, the orchestra really shines in all the score’s details, but the brass and woodwinds are particularly impressive. Soprano Julia Borchert does a fine job with the very difficult technical and expressive challenges of her solo; and we’ve heard baritone Michael Volle before on an excellent Schubert lieder disc for Naxos (type Q707 in Search Reviews). Here, he’s appropriately strong and authoritative, fully in control of Brahms’ dramatic solo “role”.
As mentioned, the problems come with Bernius’ somewhat quirky take on a work that’s too well known and established in its performing tradition (not to mention a perfectly well-marked score) to be subjected to unwarranted fussing and fiddling. The slow, luxurious beginning, which at first gets your attention and succeeds in creating an atmosphere of comfort, warmth, and consolation, soon grinds down to an even lower gear, and you find yourself subconsciously trying to get it moving again. But even more unsettling is Bernius’ habit of imposing sudden ritards or slight pauses at climactic points.
One instance is (if you have a score handy) at letter D of the opening movement, where the slowing of tempo is so out of place that you think this passage must be from another performance! Also just after E, Bernius for no apparent reason pauses in the middle of a line, between the words “da” and “Leid”, stifling the flow at a critical moment. The conductor also has habit of pausing between “Selig” and “sind” in the places where the choir sings the phrase a cappella–and really musses things up with a slight hesitation just before the powerful D-major chord on the final measure of the third movement. And so it goes–and this is not to mention the sudden (unwritten) dynamic changes he asserts, one example being in the famous Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen chorus (10 measures before D), which is full of many other strange “interpretive” effects–and is further marred by what appears to be a bad edit 16 bars before the movement’s end.
Mind you, these are things that in the grand scheme don’t destroy the performance–and they won’t be noticed at all by listeners either unfamiliar or only casually acquainted with this work. But if you know the Requiem reasonably well, you’ll be affected by these impositions and it’s an individual matter as to whether you’ll be unduly bothered by them. The fact is, Bernius takes major liberties with the score. On the other hand, we can appreciate many plusses in the performance: the really ominous timpani strokes in the second movement; the strikingly clear articulation of the bass line in the second movement after L (“Die Erlöseten des Herrn. . .”); Bernius’ carefully delineated triplet and across-the-bar rhythms; the orchestral brass and winds; and the live-concert benefits of a highly charged, intensely focused choir and soloists–especially in the sixth movement. While Death may have no sting (“Wo ist dein Stachel?”), this performance certainly does!
Sonically, it’s a bit of a trade-off: while the tuttis are mighty and certainly room-fillingly thrilling, there’s a lack of internal detail that can lead to incoherence, as at the end of the third movement’s final fugue. As with a group of people all talking at once, there’s a lot going on, but you can’t sort it all out. Overall the sound is brassy (which is not always a bad thing) and the recording levels are lower than usual, so you’ll probably have to turn up your volume. In sum, Bernius makes tremendous music–and his orchestra and chorus faithfully follow him all the way, but it’s too much his own in ways that rather than clarify or offer insightful alternatives simply confound and interrupt. If only that Boston recording were still available. . .
