Haydn/Mozart: The Creation; Mass in C, K317 (Coronation)

I’m hard-pressed to think of an old recording less worth issuing on CD. The Vienna Volksoper Orchestra can play this music well enough, and Horenstein does introduce a few nice touches to the Haydn. For the most part, though, his reading is lumpenly pedestrian. The soloists are all over the place, the chorus is hopelessly inadequate and the sound unacceptably constricted. Several bad edits include a whole bar missing from an early number in The Creation. Both works are much better served in any number of other versions. Stephen Maddock

Our rating

1

Published: January 20, 2012 at 3:09 pm

COMPOSERS: Haydn/Mozart
LABELS: Carlton Turnabout
WORKS: The Creation; Mass in C, K317 (Coronation)
PERFORMER: Wilma Lipp (soprano), Christa Ludwig (alto), Murray Dickie (tenor), Walter Berry (bass); Vienna Singverein, Vienna Oratorio Choir, Vienna Volksoper Orchestra, Vienna Pro Musica SO/Jascha Horenstein
CATALOGUE NO: 30371 00087 ADD (1960/58)

I’m hard-pressed to think of an old recording less worth issuing on CD. The Vienna Volksoper Orchestra can play this music well enough, and Horenstein does introduce a few nice touches to the Haydn. For the most part, though, his reading is lumpenly pedestrian. The soloists are all over the place, the chorus is hopelessly inadequate and the sound unacceptably constricted. Several bad edits include a whole bar missing from an early number in The Creation. Both works are much better served in any number of other versions. Stephen Maddock

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