Forget, for a moment, the period piping wood-doves, thunderbolts rattling authentically from short sticks, the presence or absence of double-bass Leviathans. The mega-Wunderwerk is back, with two new mid-price CD releases of major Creations from Karajan (DG) and Solti (Decca). Both are worthy additions to the catalogue.
This, at last, is Karajan's great 1966-9 Schopfung, robustly remastered, and differing obviously from the live 1982 DG Salzburg recording in the presence of the Berlin rather than the Vienna Philharmonic. The change is all-important. The revelatory later version, consistently praised in these columns, here meets its real match. While the glory of the 1982 paradise garden was primarily the obvious beauty of its strings, the BPO brings its entire forces palpably to bear, horns far from diffident, woodwind soloists radiating bright and unexpected shafts of light.
In the Eden of 1982, its seems, all manner of things will be well: in 1969 there is still a sense of threat lurking in the Chaos, a sharper, harder edge to its chords, real teeth in its leonine attack. This is Karajan at his most inspired: I challenge anyone to find a more literally breathtaking No. 27 Trio, where the particular character of the woodwind, the dry, skeletal strings and the blend of voices convey so elequently the withdrawal and subsequent replenishing of the Divine Spirit.
As for the voices themselves: well, this is the Creation of Fritz Wunderlich, of Gundula Janowitz and of Fischer-Dieskau. Wunderlich's unique sensitivity to the dramatic energy of each vowel and consonant within an effortlessly lyrical line creates unforgettable moments like the shift from sun to moonlight, and the first image of created Man. Wunderlich's death, in mid-recording, means that, here and there, Walter Krenn is a substitute Uriel, cunningly matched in weight and timbre, though expressively distant. Here, the more overtly heroic Francisco Araiza (1982) has the edge.
Where Edith Mathis (1982) is both corporeal woman and archangel, Janowitz, younger and with her characteristic bloom untarnished, brings a truly other-worldly aura to Gabriel. Indeed, she scarcely touches down in the somewhat blurred fioritura passages. The sense of wonder, though, in her steady, eloquent recitatives, the truly healing properties of her rhapsodic ''Heil'', to say nothing of her deliquescent ode to the nightingale, are incomparable contributions to this performance.
Walter Berry's true bass Raphael (he descends to the lowest earth for his ''Gewurm'', as does Kurt Moll for Levine—also DG) is a sober presence in contrast to Jose van Dam's later (1982) and livelier verbal responses and his unique Cousteau-eye view of the deeps. Berry's earthly counterpart is Fischer-Dieskau's Adam. Whereas van Dam focuses on the humility of the Creature, Fischer-Dieskau glories in Adam as Hero, triumphant in his leading forth of Eve, rhetorical in the solemnity of his vow-taking.
The move from Karajan to Solti brings with it a fascinating re-orientation of acoustic perspective, of definition, and of solo/chorus relationship. Partly because of Decca's clearer, fresher acoustic air and sense of space, and partly because of Solti's rhythmic energy, the chorus at last comes properly into their own. They become, as Haydn surely intended, soloists in their own right here: for the first time, I found myself positively looking forward to their appearance.
Solti's sharp instinct for pacing brings a sudden spurt of joyous energy just where it is needed to ''die Himmel erzahlen''; it also launches each aria with real momentum, and propels Adam and Eve through Eden with a new spring in their step. The soloists are almost edged into the wings. James Morris's Raphael, for instance, in the oratorical mode, shows no great sensitivity to word or accompanying instrumental colour: it is a relief when a more sympathetic dimension is introduced in the closely expressive Adam of Siegmund Nimsgern. With Sylvia Greenberg (Eve) and Norma Burrowes (Gabriel) sharing similar scale and timbre, the double-casting here seems superflous. And neither Burrowes nor Rudiger Wohlers as Uriel are much more than amiable presences.
Solti's Schopfung still has the edge, though, over Levine's powerful, but over-generalized big-screen version. Kurt Moll and Gosta Winbergh are there, and there is an equally tempting fortepiano continuo. But for the wonder of the seven days in their full physical and spiritual glory, it is still Karajan who reigns as re-Creator supreme.'