Walter Braunfels: Grosse Messe Op.37

Interesting and powerful but too much to grasp at even a few hearings. Very rich. Robert Holl is long in the tooth but not the key soloist, and Simone Schneider is far more than commanding, this is remarkable singing that would dominate in any company.Braunfels is an acquired taste. The Birds has some lovely music and is well worth knowing, but there is a tendency (that I find only on every other listening) to a bit of short-windedness in the melody. Beautiful colors, beautiful phrases, but a really full melody that I would keep?The harmonic and structural inventiveness of the Mass is very impressive. So I'm writing before I've really digested it, because it will get many more hearings and deserves to be better known.

A one-star review (below or above) on account of the download having proved troublesome isn't quite doing either the work or the performance justice. I might give a four star review, to suggest excellence without achieving perfection, but to counter the ill-conceived one-star review I indulge in this sort of counter-balancing grade-inflationary behavior.As per the performance: There's another one, with Manfred Honeck, also live, taken considerably broader tempos, on Decca. It's perhaps just a smidgen more cleanly executed (on disc, although not actually in concert, if memory serves), but the main impression with only two versions available is that they are different interpretations rather than 'better' or 'worse'.As per the work, it's one of the great masses of the 20th century, daring, inventive and impressive.I wrote the liner notes, so I should recuse myself when heaping praise on this recordings, but I'm not prevented from quoting MusicWeb's John Quinn:"The performance seems to me to be an excellent one and one delivered with very strong conviction – I only use the word “seems” because the work was new to me when this CD arrived and I have no yardstick against which to judge it. The notes tell us that Jörg-Peter Weigle, who is the chorus master of the Philharmonischer Chor Berlin, was completely gripped by the score when he first read it. That comes across in the way he conducts, obtaining fine, dedicated playing and singing from his orchestra and choirs. It seemed to me that sometimes Robert Holl sounded a bit strained and over-emphatic in his delivery but overall the solo quartet is a strong one and Simone Schneider is a commanding vocal presence.The recorded sound is good and the notes provide a useful and enthusiastic introduction to the work, including its performance history.The more I hear of Walter Braunfels’ music the more impressed I am. The Grosse Messe is an imposing work. Sadly, I suspect that the demands it makes on performers and the conservatism of concert planners mean that opportunities to hear it live will be extremely limited. We must be grateful then for this fine, committed recorded performance which makes it possible for us properly to evaluate this musical statement of faith."

Braunfels' amazing Grosse Messe composed in the mid-1920s is, along with his equally astonishing Te Deum, one of the great pinnacles of 20th century choral music, and is music that really needs to be heard. The Great Mass has it all: four operatic soloists, vast choirs including a children's choir, a huge orchestra with a massive battery of percussion; it has tunes that linger in the mind, moments where vistas open in the soul, great thunderous passages and moments of total serenity. This is a worthy second commercially available recording.If you are wondering why you haven't heard of it or its composer, a brief run through the Braunfels story. Walter Braunfels was regarded in the early years of the 20th century as one of Germany's leading composers, up there with Richard Strauss, Hindemith and Zemlinsky, and in his time ahead of Mahler. He composed a series of very popular operas, of which Die Vogel (the Birds) is the most famous. In fact, he was so popular that the Nazi party asked him to compose an anthem for them, but he declined, and very soon they realised that this staunchly Christian composer (brought up a Lutheran, but a convert to Catholicism) was in fact part-Jewish. Braunfels' music was banned, he lost his teaching-post in Cologne, but was allowed to go into internal exile in Southern Germany. After the War, he returned to Cologne, only to discover that now the powers that be felt that his music was somehow tainted by the past, in that brave new world where fashionable music was supposed to sound like the soundtrack from a horror film. His music fell into total obscurity until in recent years his grandson, architect Stephan Braunfels has been instrumental in getting it a second hearing. And once again he is being celebrated in his native Germany with performances and commercial recordings.The Grosse Messe itself follows the traditional contours of the classical German Mass, with more than a hint of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis towards the end of the Credo, although the spirit of romantic yearning that comes across in, for example, the central section of the Kyrie is wholly Braunfels' own. People have compared Braunfels' very late Romanic choral music to Richard Strauss, Petrassi, but George Lloyd and Sven-David Sandstrom in more recent years have produced music that is in a similar vein.This is the second recording of the Mass. The first was released a couple of years ago, conducted by Honeck on the Decca label no less. Both derive from live performances captured by German Radio, and both feature the same women soloists. But they are very different interpretations and recordings, fully justifying their existence. Weigle's recording favours the orchestra, his soloists and the children's choir, in Honeck's the full chorus is much more prominent. Weigle's male soloists are bigger names, but Honeck's sound younger and fresher, and although the women are more confident second time round, there is an edge to the soprano's voice not picked up on the earlier recording. The mezzo's voice, however, is steadier and richer for Weigle. Partly because of the recording, I suspect, Weigle's chorus produces a smooth, homogeneous sound, where Honeck's sounds more dramatic, as you would expect from an opera house chorus. There are other striking differences too: Weigle is consistently faster and makes the music sound more modern and angular, bringing out details of orchestration lost to Honeck, but the latter is consistently slightly slower and more Romantic, capturing the ecstasy of the Benedictus more effectively that Weigle. But Weigle's speed means he takes only one CD for Honeck's two. Knife to throat, I marginally prefer the Honeck, but that's just Romantic old me.Whichever you choose, and I hope you will choose one or indeed both, you are in for a treat!

DaCapo is the national producer of classical-music recordings in Denmark, where English is widely spoken (as in the rest of Scandinavia). Liner notes on the recording are supplied in English and German. I am disappointed and displeased to note that the Latin texts are available in a German translation only; no English translation is provided. Fortunately, my Latin is adequate to translate them into English.I would have returned the disc and requested a refund were it not that the music is wonderful. Have a good day. -- J. Komar

Walter Braunfels était l'un des compositeurs allemands les plus en vogue au début du XXè siècle, principalement reconnu pour ses opéras dont Die Vögel qui a connu un succès triomphal et de nombreuses reprises lors de sa création en 1920. La musique de Braunfels est caractéristique de la veine post-romantique (celle de Richard Strauss ou Erich Korngold) avec la particularité d'une sonorité moins opulente et souvent teintée d'amertume.Hélas, sa demi-judéité lui a valu d'être destitué par le régime nazi et le compositeur est tombé rapidement dans un oubli quasi total.Le présent disque, qui s'inscrit dans une série d'enregistrements de qualité du compositeur, est donc une aubaine. La Grosse Messe est l'une de ses œuvres les plus imposantes tant par sa durée (80 minutes) que par les effectifs considérables qu'elle requiert : grand orchestre, orgue, chœur mixte, chœur d'enfants et 4 solistes dont les parties requièrent une puissance et une endurance wagnériennes. La musique semble couler d'une traite avec une écriture chromatique extrêmement maîtrisée et une orchestration finement aiguisée donnant une couleur extrêmement dramatique, voire tragique.L'enregistrement ne répond hélas pas aux attentes, à cause d'interprètes qui ne se montrent pas à la hauteur (ou plutôt ne se donnent pas les moyens) d'une partition redoutable. Si les chœurs sont remarquables, l'orchestre du Konzerthaus de Berlin se comporte en "bon professionnel", extrêmement virtuose mais peu inspiré, alors que certains passages semblent pouvoir faire pleurer les pierres dans une interprétation idoine.Surtout, le quatuor de soliste est bien à la peine, à l'exception du soprano impérial et puissant de Simone Schneider. Christian Elsner est dans une méforme qui rend son haut médium extrêmement tendu. Surtout, la basse de Robert Hall est noyée et à bout de souffle et le mezzo de Gerhild Romberger a bien du mal avec le rythme, ainsi que des problèmes récurrents de justesse.Une relative déception donc, qui permet d'imaginer mais pas tout à fait d'entendre ce qui semble être une splendide redécouverte.

Les enregistrements de W Braunfels se succèdent et c'est tant mieux. Très belle messe. Puissante, impressionnante, imposante, colorée, aussi réussie que son Te Deum. Très belle prise de son. enregistrement public (mais on ne l'entend pas et pas d'applaudissements) . Très bonne interprétation (on peut toujours chipoter de-ci de-là, en particulier pour l'alto et la basse) mais pas au point de gâcher votre plaisir si vous avez aimé le Te Deum. Un maelstrom sonore. Du très bon Braunfels. Décidément un compositeur qui surprend et en bien.