War Requiem

Description

A reissue of a generous and “thematically” coherent program in which Britten’s ardent meditation on war, the War Requiem, is accompanied by other 20th-century works which, in very different writing, are also laments — again on war, in Penderecki’s case, and on the death of a young girl, cut down by illness, in Berg’s. The set also forms a kind of “posthumous tribute” to the great East German conductor Herbert Kegel, since the War Requiem, recorded shortly before his suicide, was his swan song. If Theo Adam does not have the steadiness, bravery, and tenderness shown by Fischer-Dieskau in the historic 1963 recording conducted by Britten, this version is nevertheless not lacking in qualities: the choirs are magnificent in precision and vitality, and tenor Anthony Roden’s singing is, in the full sense of the term, always “right”: inhabited and inspired. The voice is never overexposed. Free of pathos, supple, yet not without brilliance, it knows how to be, when necessary, almost white. A fairly good performance, on the whole, by soprano K. Lövass. The conducting of the chamber orchestra accompanying the vocal soloists could be more detailed, but the sound architecture as the conductor builds it has, in the large masses, breadth, depth, and that noble profile — that sense of arch and curve — from which emotional power and humanism emanate. This recording deserves rediscovery. In Berg’s brilliant concerto, the orchestra proves excellent, but the solo violinist remains in the background and does not meet expectations. Fine performance of Penderecki’s work, though one may prefer the version conducted by the composer. (Bertrand Abraham)