Most helpful customer reviews
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3.0 out of 5 stars
...could be better, but get the HARNONCOURT!, Dec 23 2003
I bought this recording after hearing it live in Toronto with the TSO and Ben Heppner, I forgot who was conducting(someone not so well known)...it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life and the key moment was the "Hallelulia" chorus at the end. It was overwhelming! When it was over, I was shaking all the way home! I was dissapointed when I heard Welser-Most doing the same chorus...It's a bit slow and not dramatic enough. (That moment should be absolutely overwhelming, and swift-like, taking you up up and away!) I listened to it many times and even bought the Mitropoulos version to compare (which suffered terrible sound, but good interpretation and cast). But I still wasn't fully satisfied with the oratorio as a whole. Welser-Most does have some nice moments, especially in the "hell scenes" (full of dramatic thrust, weighty fire and powerhouse sound). But I still couldn't see the structure of the work, I needed to understand the work structurally and musically, and he didn't do that for me. I read in the Penguin Guide about a Harnoncourt version on Teldec, which I thought would be promising (they give it 2 and a half stars...they're always complaining about something). But was I ever right about deciding to get the Harnoncourt! After I found it and listened I understood everything! Harnoncourt plays every passage with such dedication and with so much importance, He doesn't walk it on by like Welser-Most, he shows you everything. The playing is gorgeous and the sound is so much better than the EMI. He is with the Vienna Philharmonic and Singverein in a live performance in Vienna, excellent cast too. There is a interview in the booklet, along with full translations of the text. He does the glorious "Hallelulia" chorus extremely splendorously, building and building it up until the final "Amen". If you want to have Franz Schmidt's great Magnum Opus oratorio, get the Harnoncourt version on Teldec, its amazing! I give it 5 stars!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding recording . . . but where is the text?, Jul 24 2000
This is an outstanding recording of Schmidt's last masterpiece. The Amazon reviewer who cites the lack of melody might have missed some of the "big tunes"--they are there, but one cannot really incorporate "haunting melodies" in a fugue or in some of the faster movements of the piece. However, even if the work is not particularly melodic, it is certainy quite lyrical.The performance is wonderful, particularly in the opening "Prelude in heaven" and the concluding sequence, starting with "Hallelujah!" The solo quartet (Oelze, Kallisch, Odinius, Reiter) make an excellent team, and Pape is quite commanding. The true "star" of the piece, however, is St. John--the nearly twenty-minute monologue at the beginning of Part II is quite without equal in the classical repertoire. Luckily, Stig Andersen is quite up to the demands of this enormously challenging part. The only criticism I had was that (in my copy at least) there is a translation of the libretto, but not the libretto itself. Curiously, the Mitropoulos recording on Sony features the libretto but not the translation. However, at full price, texts and translations should be standard. One only need look at the Schubert Hyperion series for countless examples of good production design.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The last Great Oratorio, Feb 14 2000
If there's one thing this overwhelmingly powerful oratorio proves, it's "don't mess with the Big Man upstairs!" In setting the nearly-complete Apocalypse as revealed to John the Divine, the Austrian composer Franz Schmidt produced a masterpiece and, perhaps, the last great oratorio.This is music that really ought to be in your collection. It is an easy piece to follow, as it is laid-out in the classic oratorio design, with John the narrator introducing the various events which occur as the seven seals are opened. Musically, Schmidt doesn't move much past chromatic late romanticism. However, lest I make it sound like a retread of earlier pieces, I must reiterate that this is strong stuff. Schmidt wrote it right before World War II as he was dying of cancer and it has a truly prophetic feel about it. The music for the Four Horsemen sequence is amazing. The War sequence contrasts a lamenting women's chorus with a brutal, vicious men's chorus based on a rhythmic figure that is pounded home. It's truly terrifying. This is followed by a heartbreaking mother/child duet describing the Horseman of Famine. The last horseman, Death, features two worn-out soldiers commenting about the last horsemen to music which aptly describes a silent, body-ridden battlefield. The Amazon reviewer suggests that this is tuneless, but that is inaccurate. The melodies used are designed for contrapuntal development of which there is plenty. You won't soon forget the War chorus, I guarantee. This performance is terrific, although with such a complicated piece some of the details get lost in the shuffle. Nevermind. Get this and be blown away by the end of the world and the coming heavenly kingdom. The power (& terror) of this music might just make you reconsider religion.
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