The Spartanburg Festival Chorus (in which I sing) is performing Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms," along with Benjamin Britten's "Saint Nicholas" this April. Each time we perform a choral work which which I'm not too familiar, I immediately do an online search, and try to buy an SACD of that work.
This Chandos/Slatkin SACD is, as far as I can tell, the only SACD availalble of "Chichester Psalms," and so I snapped it up. Frankly, I find it one of the biggest disappointments ever, both musically, and in particular, sonically.
Let me first state that I simply don't like "Kaddish," and am not too much a fan of "Missa Brevis," and so my comments here are exclusively for the Psalms, as my obvious bias against those other two works, discredits me as being a valid critic one way or another regarding either.
I find Slatkin's perormance, at best, merely OK. There's no real feeling or emotion in the Psalms, and I also find the boy soprano just plain awful. That which I find most inexcusable is the dreadful sound of the recording, either on the CD or the SACD layers. It's flat, thin, edgy and harsh - everything an SACD should NOT sound like. Worst of all, for some reason, the engineers recorded the disc at a ridiculously low level, requiring me to significantly boost the volume on my preamp. Ordinarily, with a symphonic SACD, a setting just past 11:00 o'clock yields very loud results, and genuinely slam-bam dynmaics if the piece has such material on it. In order to approximate that volume level, this Chandos SACD required me to set the volume closer to 2:00 o'clock. That, in and of itself, isn't any real problem, except if I should forget that I left it there after playing this disc, and then started to play another one: I would likely cause serious damage to my speakers, or at least, blow a few fuses. I find this especially disappointing, since the Chandos SACD of Bernstein's "Mass" is simply extraordinary, in all respects. Whey then should this recording sound so lousy?
Marin Alsop, on the other hand, was a Bernstein protege, and has a genuine feel for his music. Having seen here live conducting the "Symphonic Dances from West Side Story," as well as a truly stunning performance of "Mass," left no doubt that she knows just the right way to perform Bernstein. Fortunately, Alsop has a CD (alas, not an SACD) on Naxos of the "Chichester Psalms," sandwiched between the "On the Waterfront" suite, and "Three Dance Episodes" from "On the Town."
While all of the material on Alsop's recording is stuff I like, her performance of the Psalms, and the fine boy soprano, provide a flat-out glorious rendition of this deeply spiritual work. It's hard to listen to the third movement of the Psalms and not be reduced to tears - the music is THAT beautiful, and beautifully played.
So, shame on Chandos for their flop with Slatkin. That a CD, and a much older CD at that should blow away the sound (and performance) of an SACD just shouldn't be. But it is here.
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