Beethoven - Missa solemnis, Op. 123

Otto Klemperer - New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra

Elisabeth Söderström: Soprano
Marga Höffgen: Contralto
Waldemar Kmentt: Tenor
Martti Talvela: Bass

Lossless: Ape (img + cue + log) = 417 mb
Lossy: Mp3 (lame "preset standard") = 116 mb
Artwork @ 300dpi = 17 mb

Total playing time: 79:31

Recorded 30.IX & 1, 4-8, 11-13.X.1965, Kingsay Hall, London.

Released 2001

EMI Classics 7243 5 67546 2 1

Track listing:
1. Kyrie
2. Gloria - Gloria in excelsis Deo
3. Gloria - Qui tollis
4. Gloria - Quoniam tu solus sanctus
5. Credo - Credo in unum Deum
6. Credo - Et incarnatus est
7. Credo - Et resurrexit
8. Sanctus - Sanctus
9. Sanctus - Benedictus
10. Agnus Dei - Agnus Dei
11. Agnus Dei - Dona nobis pacem

Reviews:
Classicstoday
I've owned Otto Klemperer's classic 1965 recording of Beethoven's Missa solemnis in many guises, from LP and reel-to-reel tape to cassette and compact disc. Yet it's never sounded so good as it does via EMI's latest CD incarnation. Compared with the previous CD transfer, there's more bloom in the higher frequencies, with slightly greater definition in the bass, and the massed voices register with increased heft and presence. Best of all, EMI now gets the whole work on one midpriced disc, as opposed to its two-CD outlay coupled with Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. Klemperer secures stark, weighty textures from the New Philharmonia, whose forceful playing never loses linear clarity. Moreover, Klemperer's inexorable inner rhythm and carefully worked out tempo relationships (try the second half of the Gloria) provide gripping continuity in a work that can easily sprawl in the wrong hands. Wilhelm Pitz's expertly trained chorus is beyond cavil, as are the well-matched and radiant soloists. Not only is this reissue fully worthy of EMI's Great Recordings of the Century sobriquet, it's also quite a bargain. Don't let your collection be without it.

Gramophone
"I must end on a note of heartfelt gratitude to all concerned: conductor, orchestra, soloists, chorus, engineers, for a recording that must take its place on the heights among the greatest recordings of our time. As Riezler so truly says in his book on the composer, before mentioned, "having pictured in music, in the Kyrie and especially in the Benedictus, the self-existent majesty of God and the eternal peace of heaven, Beethoven was concerned in the prayer of mankind for peace, with something quite different. . . the unrest of human existence". This is why "he dared to allow the confusion of the outside world to invade the sacred domain of church music". (Haydn, however, had anticipated him in the Agnus Dei of his C major Mass" in tempore belli".) Beethoven, like Haydn, does not seek to preach, it is not his aim to rebuke directly the vulgarities, trivialities, or worse, and the lack of faith of his age; or, prophetically, of ours. This irascible, contradictory, ailing man, realizing his highest potential, the best in him, warns that man is not selfsufficient. Warfare, inward or outward— and he styles the movement "a prayer for outward and inward peace"—is timeless and elemental. "All a poet can do is to warn", Wilfred Owen wrote in the preface to a planned edition of his poems, and it is all a musician can do. This Britten has shown us in his War Requiem and Beethoven. in this last movement. But that is far from the whole of Beethoven's message to us. Even more important is his blazing confession of faith in God from which our small torches, often barely alight, can renew themselves. This, however we may interpret the message, is the true value of this great recording: we can study the unique work, contemplate it and reflect on it, with wonder and awe, in our homes in a manner naturally impossible in the concert hail. It is after we hear great music that it becomes creative in us."

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