Jerry Hadley, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Kent Nagano - Leonard Bernstein: Mass (2012)
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 426 MB | 01:45:41
Genre: Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi
WEB | FLAC (tracks) - 426 MB | 01:45:41
Genre: Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi
I am not an automatic fan of composer-led recordings, even when the composer is as great a conductor as Leonard Bernstein. However, after living with this newcomer for a while, I have to confess that it doesn’t quite match that classic version, even though it does a few things even better. On the plus side, there’s Kent Nagano’s swift and perky direction of some of the music-theater numbers, such as “God Said”, “World Without End”, and in general all of the music in and around the Gloria. But this can be a two-edged sword: The mechanized Credo has less impact than it could; a very quick tempo at the opening of the Agnus Dei prevents the chorus from ever sounding really angry and demanding; and the calamitous Dona Nobis Pacem simply lacks the bluesy sleaze that Bernstein himself wrings out of it. A slower tempo also would have allowed the music’s many layers to register with greater clarity.