Although there are at least half a dozen historic recordings of this glorious work that boast a more striking profile than Kempe's, none is more profoundly convincing. The opening ''Selig sind, die da Leid tragen'' is a perfect place to sample: the tempo is ideal, the choral singing warmly inflected, the blend of voices and orchestral timbres, luminous. Perhaps ''Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras'' lacks the imposing tread of, say, Klemperer (EMI, 6/87), but as the movement progresses, Kempe's mastery of light and shade makes musical common sense of all that preceded it. Both soloists are superb, Elisabeth Grummer offering quite the loveliest ''Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit'' I've heard in years, pure in tone yet deeply expressive. Fischer-Dieskau, too, weighs his words carefully, declaiming ''Herr, lehre doch mich'' with a compassionate inwardness, his voice warm and rounded. But the performance is at its greatest in the work's second half, namely Nos. 4-7, with a stirring ''Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt'' and a beautifully drawn, consolatory ''Seilig sind die Toten'' to close. This is not the sort of performance to 'dip into', excerpting this or that passage in search of some novel interpretative quirk. Kempe's is essentially a deeply felt overview, and his achievement is in the way he makes the Deutsches Requiem cumulatively satisfying.
The success of this venture is greatly aided by Fritz Ganss's initial production. The location is the famous Jesus-Christus Kirche, Berlin and although only in mono, the sound-quality is both dynamic and transparent. True, there are odd patches of congestion, but as mid-1950s choral recordings go, this one is pretty exceptional. A superb Deutsches Requiem, then; my only regret is that EMI have failed to provide texts and translations.'