Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Johann Michael HAYDN (1737-1806)
Motets and other Choral Works
Sebastian Krause, Eckart Wiegräbe, Uwe Gebel, Fernando Günther (trombones)
MDR Leipzig Radio Choir (MDR-Rundfunkchor)/Philipp Ahmann
rec. February 2020, Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche, Leipzig, Germany
Text and translations included
Reviewed as DSF64 5.0 channel file from the Pentatone web site
PENTATONE PTC5186868 SACD
[61:52]
My colleague, Brian Wilson, has already covered this release in his
Passiontide and Easter 2021
overview, but I happened to listen to it on Qobuz myself and was thoroughly
bowled over by both the performances of the well-known Bruckner choral
works and the new (to me) choral music of Michael Haydn. I suspected that
the recording might sound even more fantastic in its five-channel
incarnation, and that’s the version I’m reviewing here. Not only are the
performances at the highest level, but I’d say that the sound quality has
probably reached a new pinnacle of realism in recordings of choral music.
Especially in this multichannel format, the sound just opens out so much
more beyond the confines of one’s listening room that I begin to feel that
listening to the recorded sound is closer than ever to listening in person
to the performances in the original location (in this case, the
Paul-Gerhardt Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Connewitz district of
Leipzig, in Saxony). The booklet photo shows more microphones than I like
to see, but I can hardly argue with the wonderful results. (It’s always
possible that some of the microphones seen in the picture were there simply
there for back-up too.)
The Bruckner works have been recorded many times before, and, although a
number of previous recordings have certainly captured the essence of this
music, I’ve never heard the choral balance as much to my liking as on this
recording. To my ears, some choral recordings are top heavy, with too much
of the soprano parts in the balance, so that when one arrives at a
particularly intense portion of a work (such as the fortississimo – or, as
we Yanks like to say, “triple forte” – climax on the word, “pacem” in bar
47 of Virga Jesse – 2:04 in this performance),
the sound becomes more than a bit piercing. There’s not even a trace of
that problem on this Pentatone release. I did a comparison of a few of the
Bruckner works on this recording with those on the hänssler Classic
recording, with Marcus Creed and the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart (part of
hänssler’s SWR music series). This is another recording I love, and I
picked it for comparison because it’s also recorded in multi-channel (as a
physical SACD). Of course, it has Bruckner’s E-minor Mass on it, instead of
the Michael Haydn works. And the works on the hänssler recording are also
performed and recorded wonderfully (with a bit more sound in the surround
channels). But, if forced to make a choice between the two, I’d pick this
Pentatone album for its even closer to perfect choral balance and even more
tactile sound quality. In a way, we’re spoiled these days!
Philipp Ahmann seems to have considered every aspect of
interpretation of these Bruckner works, with the MDR Leipzig Radio Choir
producing a total achievement in terms of intonation, balance, dynamic
range, nuance/color, and shaping of the phrases. In the two tracks which
include trombones (Inveni David and Afferentur regi), those instruments are
balanced perfectly, and almost sound like natural extensions of the choral
texture itself. Outstanding!
In Wilson’s overview, he observed that the Michael Haydn works on this
album sound “well ahead of their time”, and I couldn’t agree more. A
particularly striking example of the composer’s musical prescience is the
first of his two settings of Christus factus est, which contains a
remarkable soprano entrance at the interval of the ninth, so similar to the
signature usage of that interval Bruckner employs in his own extraordinary Christus factus est. It’s almost as if Michael Haydn were
extending musical style 80 years into the future, albeit without quite as
much of Bruckner’s chromatic anguish. Even from the beginning of this
Michael Haydn setting, one is struck by the seriousness of purpose coming
through, something I did not expect given my familiarity only with a couple
of the composer’s symphonies.
In Michael Haydn’s other setting of Christus factus est, we hear
him making impressive use of opposing soprano/alto and tenor/bass divisions
of the texture. It’s interesting that neither Joseph Haydn nor Mozart wrote
a lot of unaccompanied choral music, so this in itself adds interest in
that we hear Austrian religious a cappella music from the later
eighteenth-century courtesy of these superb Michael Haydn works. In the
booklet notes for this album, Markus Schwering makes the point that
Bruckner surely would have been familiar with Michael Haydn’s church music,
and, once having heard these Michael Haydn works, it certainly doesn’t seem
fanciful for us to imagine a tributary of musical descent from Michael
Haydn to Bruckner.
At this point (before the end of this review), I feel I must interrupt the
musical discussion in order to relate the unusual way in which Pentatone
makes the various quality levels of their downloads available. There are
three levels: high quality (16-bit CD equivalent, WAV format, two-channel),
premium quality (24-bit stereo or surround), and master quality (1-bit
stereo and surround). Notice that master quality is stereo AND surround,
and the reason for this is that what you download is not the playable dsf
files, but the iso “container” file, which includes both the stereo and
multichannel formats in the same download. In most situations that I know
of, you cannot play an iso file directly, and must convert the iso file
into its component dsf files. Most people will need additional software to
accomplish this (as I did). Pentatone evidently prefers for its customers
to download the iso file, because it apparently results in a quicker
download.
This was my first time dealing with an ISO file, and it took me a while to
obtain the conversion software and to get the hang of using it. So although
the download itself went perfectly smoothly, it took another half hour to
convert the file into a usable (i.e. playable) dsf file type. Ultimately,
it’s perhaps not a big deal, but if this sounds a bit too complicated, the
dsf files are available directly at the Nativedsd site for most of the
Pentatone titles. Or one could simply choose premium quality over master
quality. (But in this case, you won’t be getting the same format as the
Pentatone master — to some listeners, this makes no difference, and the
price for premium is less.)
Getting back to the composers, my understanding is that a monument was
erected to Michael Haydn in Salzburg fifteen years after his death, in
1821, such was his fame and renown. Mozart didn’t get his monument in that
city until 1841! Not to disparage Mozart here, but the splendid choral
music heard on this recording makes one aware of just how accomplished a
composer Michael Haydn could be and how it’s been our loss that his choral
music has not been better known (I suppose, outside of Austria!) up until
now.
Yes, come for the Bruckner, but, by all means, stay for the Michael Haydn!
This is an incredible release.
Chris Salocks
Contents
Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Graduale: Locus iste, WAB23 (1869) [3:07]
Offertorium: Inveni David, WAB19 (1868) (with 4 trombones) [2:42]
Graduale: Christus factus est, WAB11 (1884) [5:39]
Offertorium: Afferentur regi, WAB1 (1861) (with 3 trombones) [1:55]
Hymnus: Pange lingua, WAB33 (1868) [5:02]
Graduale: Os justi, WAB30 (1879) [4:23]
Motette: Ave Maria, WAB6 (1861) [3:33]
Hymnus: Vexilla regis, WAB51 (1892) [4:47]
Graduale: Virga Jesse, WAB52 (1885) [4:12]
Johann Michael HAYDN (1737-1806)
Graduale: Christus factus est
(from In Cœna Domini ad Missam, 1796), MH628,2 [4:26]
O vos omnes
(from Responsoria in Sabbato Sancto), MH278,5 (1778) [2:39]
Ecce quo modo moritur justus, MH deest [6:56]
Graduale: Christus factus est, MH38 (1761) [4:43]
Salve Regina, MH deest [3:35]
Tenebræ factæ sunt, MH162 (1772) [4:02]
