A version of Brahms’s German Requiem, fresh and concentrated, to confound even more strikingly than usual the jaundiced strictures notoriously piled on it by Bernard Shaw. With incandescent singing from the London Symphony Chorus, finely shaded over the widest dynamic range, it is a performance which emphasises the drama of the piece in high contrasts. Any idea of longueurs in these seven movements could not be more completely dispelled. Brahms’s markings may be predominantly measured, but Previn, by choosing flowing tempos, never for a moment lets them sag as they so easily can.
Previn has long shown what a fine Brahmsian he is, not least in this taxing work (his superb 1986 Teldec recording was a revelation). What the timings reveal here is that, however dedicated the performance is throughout, Previn’s speeds are markedly faster than most. The overall timing is over 10 minutes less than those of the two fine Karajan versions I have listed, and almost as much less than Abbado.
Nor is there any hint of haste, just dramatic intensity to devotional ends. So the entry of the chorus in the setting of the Beatitudes in the first movement, ‘Selig sind’ (‘Blessed are they that mourn’), is as extreme as I have ever heard it, yet when the following setting of Psalm 126 erupts on the word ‘Freude’, Joy, the fortissimo is thrilling in its bite.
Just as bitingly dramatic are the climaxes in the second movement on the words ‘Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras’ (‘For all flesh is as the grass’), with the crescendos on the repeated timpani beats superbly caught, adding a frisson of excitement to the fearful message. Then on the words ‘Aber des Herrn Wort’ (‘But the Word of the Lord’), leading to a vigorous fugato, the suddenness of the forte attack has you sitting up. Equally, the vision of the Last Trump in the sixth movement could not be more dramatic. In every way this is a performance which has you registering the words with new intensity.
The impact of the chorus is all the greater when the recording gives the impression of a relatively compact group – more a question of the Barbican acoustic rather than actual size, I imagine. In pianissimo s it almost feels like a chamber group, but the fortissimo s bite home far more tellingly than in recordings where the chorus is set in a more reverberant acoustic.
The soloists are equally responsive. David Wilson-Johnson’s tone is not perhaps very beautiful, but the plaintive quality and his feeling for the words make it a most compelling performance, and Harolyn Blackwell in ‘Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit’ conveys in the sweetness of her tone a tender vulnerability. Altogether an outstanding, fresh and revealing version of a much-recorded work, at bargain price.'