COMPOSERS: Orff
LABELS: EMI
ALBUM TITLE: Orff - Carmina Burana
WORKS: Carmina Burana
PERFORMER: Sally Matthews, Lawrence Brownless, Christian Gerhaher, Berlin Radio Chorus, Berlin Phil, Simon Rattle
CATALOGUE NO: 557 8882
Simon Rattle’s Carmina Burana starts
haltingly, with fussily emphasised
pauses in the opening vocal tutti and
a backward choral balance creating
a muffled, frustratingly hemmedin
impression. Subdued sound
remains an issue throughout, but the
performance itself (from three New
Year concerts) soon slips into firmer
focus, with whippy instrumental
codas to the verses in ‘Fortune plango
vulnera’, mellifluous vocal phrasing in
the plainchant-influenced ‘Veris leta
facies’ and a poised, pensive ‘Omnia
sol temperat’ from baritone Christian
Gerhaher. The ‘Spring’ section as a
whole is more plangent and reflective
than most of Rattle’s CD rivals.
‘On the Green’ brings further
refined, dynamically nuanced choral
singing, but could be more lusty and
spontaneous in impact. Lawrence
Brownlee is superbly straitened as
the carbonising swan of ‘Olim lacus
colueram’, though neither Gerhaher
(precariously fluttery in the falsetto
fioritura of ‘Dies, nox et omnia’)
nor soprano Sally Matthews (whose
vibrato is rather fast and excitable) is
quite as effective as Brownlee in the
‘Courtly Love’ sequence. Rattle feasts
with relish on the burgeoning choral
climaxes of ‘Ave, formosissima’, and the immense muscle that the Berlin
Philharmonic holds in reserve fuels a
powerful final peroration.
In many ways this is a fine, fresh
issue of an overworked warhorse, with
numerous moments of individual
illumination. But the sluggish
acoustics bother me, as does a certain
lack of cumulative impact. Either of
EMI’s classic analogue alternatives
(Previn at mid-price, Frühbeck de
Burgos even cheaper) provides a more
cohesive, dramatically immediate
experience.Terry Blain