Ančerl left behind
no commercial recordings of the Requiem and this 1966 Montreux
Festival performance is, so far as is known, the sole surviving
example of his way with it. His Mozart recordings are well
known to collectors – and include concertos for bassoon and
violin (the third, with Oistrakh), horn (again, no.3) and
the Piano Concerto No.23 with Czerny-Stefanska. As Tahra
notes, other things have emerged such as his accompaniment
to Scheiderhan in the
Turkish – you can find it on
Multisonic, and 1959 Dresden recordings of the
Linz and
Prague Symphonies.
So, for a conductor who professed Mozart to be his favourite
composer the resultant discography is decidedly patchy. Let’s
hope more Toronto performances will be forthcoming.
None of this has any direct
bearing on the Requiem performance but it does serve to show
how fortunate we are that it has been preserved. It was recorded
by Radio de la Suisse Romande and captures the travelling
orchestra, soloists and conductor in good radio sound. The
prevailing tone is reverential, broadly paced and sympathetically
whole. The element of noble gravity and restraint is established
early in the
Kyrie – but it’s not one of over-solemn
seriousness. Similarly the
Dies Irae is not set forth
grandiloquently or explosively rather embodying an almost
classical restraint, a more consonant expressive web to join
the individual movements, to bind the rhetoric securely together
over its fifty-five minute span.
The
brass harmonies of the
Rex Tremendae are pointed with
great spiritual nobility – gravely moving - and the
Lachrymosa moves
with a slow, beautifully measured beneficence. The joy in
the women’s voices in the
Domine Jesu Christe is equally
palpable as is the underlying legato of the
Hostias before the
more dynamic and athletic brass-led incursions. The soloists
make for a most effective quartet - Heinz Rehfuss justly
grave in the
Tuba Mirum with Agnès Giebel and Vera
Soukoupova well balanced throughout; Georg Jelden is the
straightforward tenor.
The
disc serves as a worthy
in memoriam for Ančerl,
the centenary of whose birth in 1908 was marked by its release.
Jonathan
Woolf
Agnès Giebel (soprano);
Vera Soukoupova (alto); Georg Jelden (tenor); Heinz Rehfuss (bass) 
