Carl Orff · Carmina Burana · Cantiones profanae

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Carl Orff · Carmina Burana · Cantiones profanae

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Carl Orff · Carmina Burana · Cantiones profanae
Edita Gruberová sop · John Aler ten · Thomas Hampson bar
Berlin Cathedral Boys' Choir · Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra · Shin-yu Kai Choir · Seiji Ozawa
APE+CUE 250 MB | Easy CD-DA 12 | Booklet | No Log | 1989

Ozawa's RCA version, dating from the beginning of the 1970s, fresh direct and spontaneous and vividly transferred to CD, remains a most enjoyable performance of Orff's much recorded masterpiece. It offers excellent value on RCA's mid-price Papillon label but this new Berlin account is finer still. The same feeling of rhythmic felicity prevents any hint of heaviness yet the opening and closing ''O Fortuna'' chorus is spaciously powerful, the build-up to the climax helped by the wide-ranging recording which is both atmospheric and clear. Ozawa moves the music on more strongly here than Previn on EMI and while overall his famous version has a swaggering, robust fervour in its choral work, especially effective in bringing out the music's hedonistic geniality, Ozawa's lighter touch is joyfully infectious too. The choral singing is very good indeed and the springtime sequence has a dewy-eyed freshness, with rhythms dancing and the neat incisiveness of the choral articulation a delight.

In the following section, ''On the Meadow'', the contrasts between chorus and semi-chorus are made the more telling by the sweet refinement of the pianissimo singing of the smaller group. The balance with the orchestra is especially well integrated, and the Berlin Philharmonic players make a major contribution. The interplay between the trebles at the opening of the ''Love'' section in the delectable ''Amor volat undique'' (with the obbligato flutes and oboes) is particularly charming. Thomas Hampson makes a boldly vigorous contribution to the Tavern scene (though he is not generally quite so imaginative as Thomas Allen for Previn), and in his famous Abbot's Song there is a positively cataclysmic contribution from the percussion; the male chorus which follows is splendidly energetic, the effect exhilaratingly zestful.

The soprano, Edita Gruberova is at her finest in her lovely song about the nubile girl in the red shift, the tone and phrasing creamily sensuous, but later she virtually goes over the top in her moment of surrender (''My sweetest one, I give my all to you'') and her big upward leap in the word ''Dulcissme'' almost becomes a squawk-Sheila Armstrong (Previn) manages this better. However in her moment of earlier indecision, ''In trutina'', where the flutes languorously urge her submission (more marvellous playing), Gruberova is very touching, and the chorus bursts in with exuberant expressions of joy. The ''Oh, oh, oh'' sequence is controlled with engagingly free rubato and then Ozawa broadens his tempo for ''Ave formosissima'' to create a thrilling breadth and grandeur.

Throughout his spontaneous onward sweep is very enjoyable indeed and this is certainly now the finest digital version of Orff's cantata.
Reviewed: Gramophone 7/1989, Ivan March