So Many Versions!

 

This buy was a mistake.

I have so many of these Mozart choral recordings from Marriner, ones I purchased just in order to get exactly what I want. This was the first, but it was quickly discarded.

The problem for me is this performance of Vesperae Solennes de Confessore. It is a beautiful work, don't get me wrong, and the soloists here are a great team, but in general, I don't care for youth chorister trebles, plus the merely OK Wren Orchestra. This performance was also issued onto a 2CD Decca Double Decker, which looks terrifyingly similar to another Mozart/Marriner 2CD Decca Double Decker I have minus the George Guest Vespers (BLOG), so there is a lot to get wrong here; much of which I did get wrong...

What a mess!

Otherwise, this is an excellent performance of Mozart's Mass in C Major, one of my absolute favorites, paired with a dutiful Exsultate, Jubliate from Erna Spoorenberg, which I now have way too many of. Only excerpts are given from Mozart's Litany K. 197. The full 30 minutes can be found elsewhere (BLOG), and it is as excellently performed aside this Coronation Mass from the same team.

If you share my distaste for boy choristers in Mozart, avoid and get the other sets!

A review from 2022

This Decca Eloquence Mozart compilation combines a couple of performances of Mozart’s symphonic choral music: the complete Coronation Mass from Sir Neville Marriner in 1972 alongside two movement excerpts from their performance of Litaniae Lauretanae, the complete Vesperae Solennes de Confessore from George Guest and St. John’s College Choir, Cambridge from 1980, and Edna Spoorenberg singing with the Academy in just the Alleluia from Exultate Jubilate in 1967.

The superb entry here is the Mass in C Major ‘Krönungsmesse’. The team of soloists are really quite fine, with Ileana Cotrubaș leading the pack with her simple, beautiful tone that sounds so welcome in Mozart. The Schola Cantorum of Oxford, led by Andrew Parrott, are equally terrific, with a strong, yet suave tone that brings out the beauty and heft of Mozart’s choral writing in equal measure.

Sir Neville Marriner is spirited in his leading too, and I never sense any slackness nor undernourished textures. The Academy sound great on modern instruments, but never do they over-Romanticize music.

The Vespers from George Guest is disappointing for me, as the British tradition of boy trebles and male altos fall sourly on my ears. Again, the team of soloists are pretty good, if not as stellar as Marriner’s. Felicity Palmer makes good on a lovely Laudate Dominum, even if her voice is a tad plummy.

The excerpts from larger Mozart choral works are nothing but filler, mostly featuring Marriner’s excellent cadre of soloists again. Cotrubaș is most welcome in the Litany, again, gorgeous singing from her, and Edna Spoorenberg traverses the famous Alleluia from Exultate Jubilate, another brief excerpt.

For me, the treasure here is the Coronation Mass with Cotrubaș, Watts, Tear, and Shirley-Quirk, featuring incisive singing from the Schola Cantorum, and excellent balances from Decca’s sonics. The George Guest Vespers just aren’t to my tastes at all, and the rest are a hodgepodge of decidedly beautiful singing.

To have it all, that is, this Coronation Mass, plus the complete Litany Lauretanae and Exultate Jubilate from Marriner et al., dumping the Guest Vespers, can be had together on Decca Ovation, and is the ultimate prize for this listener.

 

Listen on YouTube

 

 

 

Works
Exsultate, Jubilate, K. 165 (15.14)
Litaniae Lauretanae, K. 195 (14.42)
Mass in C Major 'Coronation', K. 317 (26.02)
Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K. 339 (28.05)

Soloists
Ileana Cotrubaș, soprano
Erna Spoorenberg, soprano
Felicity Palmer, soprano
Margaret Cable, mezzo-soprano
Helen Watts, contralto
Philip Langridge, tenor
Robert Tear, tenor
John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Stephen Roberts, bass

Performers
St. John's College, Cambridge Choir
Schola Cantorum of Oxford
Wren Orchestra
Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Sir Neville Marriner, conductor
George Guest, conductor

Label: Decca
Year: 1967-80; 1980
Total Timing: 71.44

 

 

 

This one was tossed to the moat for George Guest's Vespers.

I realize many more will like it than I, but we can't share everything now, can we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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