COMPOSERS: Cherubini/Shostakovich
LABELS: BMG Melodiya
WORKS: Requiem in D minor
PERFORMER: Estonian State Academic Male Choir & RSO/Neeme Järvi
CATALOGUE NO: 74321 40723 2 ADD 1970/71
Cherubini’s second Requiem is at best a lugubrious affair. In this live recording made in the sonorous vastness of Riga Cathedral, a maudlin Järvi takes the piece far into regions of ruinous despair. Death itself cannot be as terrible as listening to this again would be. The Estonian choir is heard to much better advantage in Shostakovich’s Loyalty, displaying impeccable unanimity through moods of celebration and tenderness that would have made the work’s inspiration, one VI Lenin, proud. Christopher Wood
Cherubini/Shostakovich
Cherubini’s second Requiem is at best a lugubrious affair. In this live recording made in the sonorous vastness of Riga Cathedral, a maudlin Järvi takes the piece far into regions of ruinous despair. Death itself cannot be as terrible as listening to this again would be. The Estonian choir is heard to much better advantage in Shostakovich’s Loyalty, displaying impeccable unanimity through moods of celebration and tenderness that would have made the work’s inspiration, one VI Lenin, proud. Christopher Wood
Our rating
3
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:39 pm