now you’ve opened up Pandora’s box (RIP)…
my requiem’s Verdi:
this is a work I know deeply, and have had the pleasure of performing as a soloist on several occasions, including in the Chiesa di San Stefano in Venice. Most recordings are flawed in some aspect, one or more of the soloists, the recording quality, prosaic conducting, etc…
Possibly the most exceptional quartet of soloists (Karajan with Price, Cossotto, Pavarotti, and Ghiaurov, all in their prime, is indifferently recorded, originally meant for video release. the video itself is a very odd experience, filmed in an empty La Scala, with the focus mostly on HVK. for all the passion of the soloists, it’s an impersonal, emotionally flat performance.
Pavarotti’s second recording, with Solti, is probably the one to have if what you care about is Luciano uber alles. His singing is nothing less than glorious. the rest of the quartet (Sutherland, Horne, Tavela) are certainly big names, but the rest of the performance, and the recording itself, is brash, unsubtle, loud…
Luciano’s third recording is one of three Muti recordings, this one with La Scala, and it is certainly very well cast, and sung. but the recording quality is distant, which saps some energy from the home audio experience.
Muti’s BRSO recording, recorded in the 80s, but only recently released, is very good, and overlaps somewhat with his first commercial recording (see below). I love Carreras, but he sounds strained here (others may hear it differently). Nesterenko does well, but to my ear is better in the first Muti recording…
…which is also my first recommendation, with the Philharmonia. In its first incarnation it was very harsh and bright, but remastered (and in MQA, if you care/dare, it is exceptional, as is the solo quartet. Luchetti is not Luciano, but he sings in beautiful, plangent tones, and Nesterenko has the appropriate line and weight. The two women also sing with appropriate passion and ardor.
…but it is to the unlikely source of Robert Shaw, the Atlanta Symphony, and Telarc that we must turn to for the most universally recommendable Verdi Requiem. Shaw was a pupil, chorus master for, and collaborator of Toscanini, and it shows. Susan Dunn is spectacular as the soprano soloist (she recorded far too little), and Paul Plishka (who has multiple Verdi Requiems of his own) is at his best here. But it is Jerry Hadley, sadly no longer with us, who elevates the entire performance. Passionate, ardent, beseeching, in glorious open tones…
…and Telarc’s recoding is open, clear, dynamic, and allows us to hear Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus at their fullest.
Start here.
