The Verdi Requiem is one of those awe-inspiring works that rarely gets a performance matching its greatness. It certainly doesn’t get it in Riccardo Muti’s first recording of it (nor in his later one from 1987). The problems with this release are plentiful. One is Muti’s callow conducting, full of tempo extremes that generate either false excitement or fake spirituality, along with misjudged rubatos that simply sound affected. Another is the soloists, a starry bunch who never sound vocally comfortable. Renata Scotto is too often stressed and sometimes wobbly on sustained notes; Agnes Baltsa is better, but no match for rivals on other sets; Veriano Luchetti has the trill lacked by many of the tenors who have sung the role, but he’s too beefy and insensitive, and Evgeny Nesterenko is routine. All indulge in studied dynamic and color effects that try to tease “meaning” from the Latin text at the expense of the music. The chorus does what Muti asks it to do, which testifies to its considerable skill, but a larger group is necessary for this work.
Finally, the sound is awful. Recorded in 1979, it’s an example of that decade’s decline in EMI’s once great engineering. The digital transfer dates from 1995 and should have been remastered. Pianissimos are barely audible and fortes are congested at normal listening levels. Kick the volume up enough to hear the quiet passages and the louder ones will pin you to the back wall. There’s no presence, but rather an abundance of ugly digital electronic haze and an absence of detail, as well as a prevailing tonal hardness.
There are just too many good versions available of this Requiem, satisfying every interpretive preference, for this one to be competitive. They include multiple issues of vintage Toscanini, Serafin, and de Sabata, Solti’s sound spectacular on Decca, Shaw on Telarc, Giulini on EMI and even better on two different BBC issues, Fricsay, and even the surprising Barenboim on Erato. But will someone please reissue the Markevitch from Moscow, once available as a Philips LP set?
EMI offers a substantial “filler”, Cherubini’s C minor Requiem, digitally recorded in 1980 in mediocre but listenable sonics with the same chorus and orchestra. The performance is a good one, but nobody buys the Verdi Requiem for the filler. This two-fer is for fanatics who must have every version of Verdi’s masterpiece ever recorded. The rest of us can pass.
