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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
TREMENDAE MAJESTATIS, 12 Sep 2005
This set can be recommended from two points of view. Firstly it contains all Verdi's mature choral works; and in the second place this account of the Requiem is perhaps the greatest ever recorded. After the Requiem came Otello and Faslstaff, and last of all he gave us the Four Sacred Pieces. Two of these are for unaccompanied voices, one in particular featuring an allegedly special scale, which I doubt we would be aware of if we had not been told. They are only described as 'academic' or as 'exercises' because they are by Verdi, who put up a smokescreen of self-ascribed simplicity all his career. In fact he had always studied and loved the mediaeval Italian polyphonists and these two compositions can easily rank with similar works by Brahms in my opinion. In Brahms or Bach we take the academic element for granted as all part of the style, which is entirely in the German tradition. Verdi was almost as exclusively based in his own country's music - all he took from German music was features of style that Italy had given to Germany in the first place, and we hear him at that with the explicit reference to Schubert's A minor quartet at the start of the Requiem. However there is more unaccompanied vocal work in his Requiem than in anything in the German choral/orchestral repertory, and that should not surprise us. There is a slightly average liner-note that assures us solemnly that 'it is not necessary to be a practising Catholic...to conduct Verdi's sacred music'. I guess that lets Toscanini off the hook, and I don't think Giulini's performance of the Te Deum is quite the equal of his. However in the Requiem Giulini seems to me to surpass everyone I've ever heard, Toscanini among them. There is not an Italian among the soloists, and when I listen to, say, Schwarzkopf's exquisite falling phrase at 'Salva me' I still experience a slight longing to hear it dragged down in a lachrymose Italian tone, but they have too much integrity for cheap compromises, they are simply terrific in their own right, and Giulini supplies the Italian element. His sense for this great score seems to me perfect. He understands Verdi's alternations of fierce and almost brutal power with relaxed lyricism. Verdi's energy is physical, not nervous like Beethoven's. He is always powerful but rarely or never tense. The soloists do not miss a trick either. The monstrous demands of first climax of the Kyrie, with the soprano required to dominate her colleagues, choir and orchestra flat-out, are achieved grandly, and at the other extreme they are sublime in all their solos, and the great phrase at Tantus labor non sit cassus is wringing with emotion but perfectly under control. The Philharmonia chorus of the day (1963) was probably the best in the world, and the orchestra probably likewise. At full tilt in the Dies irae, with the spotlight on the brass at Tuba mirum, the cellos climbing above the treble clef at the start of the Offertorium, the celestial bassoon obbligato in the Quid sum miser - everything is just right and more. For me Verdi's Requiem is the greatest choral masterpiece since Handel himself, and his Te Deum for me surpasses Berlioz and Bruckner and is indeed the finest setting since Handel's own mighty production celebrating the ludicrous victory at Dettingen. Giulini is excellent by any standard, but I still miss the incomparable surge and thrust that Toscanini brought to it. However there is a startling bonus here in the form of a solo of a few bars right at the end from Janet Baker no less. I wonder what that cost -- the spot is normally given to a member of the chorus. The Stabat Mater is powerful and affecting, and the chorus perform superbly on their own in the other two works. The recording is not awfully 'forward' and it doesn't always treat Ghiaurov very well, but otherwise I must say my Sony equipment coped perfectly adequately, and it was a relief to be rid of the surface swish and pre-echo at points on my LP set. I checked the text and translation of the Dies irae and the Stabat Mater, and the standard was a lot better than I have been encountering lately on other productions. There are two minor misprints in the Stabat Mater ('corni' for 'cordi' and 'pagis' for 'plagis'). 'Fac me crucem inebriari' is not Latin, and we can be pretty sure the text ought to be '...cruce...', with this line and the next meaning literally 'Make me drunk with the cross and with the blood of the Son'. Otherwise my only comment is that the stanza 'To stand with thee...' should be governed by the verb 'I desire'. I lack the discernment of the liner-note author who finds the stanzas of varying literary merit. Giulini did at least one later version, but I never yet heard one to equal this, from him or from anyone. I have no real difficulty with the recording, and I greatly hope you do not either.
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~ Anja Harteros
~ Ludwig van Beethoven
![Verdi - Requiem / Price, Pavarotti, Cossotto, Ghiaurov, von Karajan, Teatro alla Scala [DVD] [1967]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41WQXK0TKFL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
~ Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
~ Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
