I've listened to the complete Christus twice now in as many months, and I must say that it's beginning to grow on me, or at least parts of it are. Nevertheless, my reservations about the work as a whole still stand, and movements like the ''Stabat Mater'' and ''Et Resurrexit'' don't improve with repeated hearings. As to the relative merits of the Dorati and Conlon performances (the latter on Erato), the Dorati certainly receives the better recording: details are clearly focused, voices and orchestra are beautifully balanced, and the superbly atmospheric acoustic (recording location unspecified) is well captured. Dorati and his team have put a lot of effort into characterization—pictorialism in movements like ''The Miracle'' (Christ walking on the waters) comes vividly to life—and the commitment rarely seems to flag, and yet it is Conlon that I find myself returning to for pleasure, despite the distant sound. In Conlon's hands, the gorgeous polyphonic introduction flows serenely, and the rapt lyricism of ''The Three Kings'' glows with a kind of calm intensity. Dorati by contrast sounds merely conscientious: lines are phrased and pointed with obvious care, dramatic effects are given due weight, but somehow the spirit declines to enter. Quite simply, I think Dorati and his team try too hard: Janacek once complained of English musicians that one could ''near them counting''; here it's as though you can hear the performers thinking—concentrating hard on every dynamic and expressive mark, and doggedly refusing to let themselves be carried along by the tide of the composer's inspiration.
One aspect of the Conlon version that I omitted to mention last time was the use of a narrator, speaking the words of Liszt's Latin commentary (from the text of the Vulgate) in the programmatic movements. I wasn't sure about this at first—I still think it spoils the atmosphere of the opening pages—but elsewher I feel that by indicating 'scene changes' in the illustrative movements it serves to heighten the tableau-like character of each section, as well as drawing the listener back from his own reveries to the gospel narratives. Without this, the unity of the overall conception becomes even more precarious. So a clear recommendation for Conlon, and the record-buyer will only need to know that Erato have accommodated the entire work on three LPs (the Hungaroton takes four) for the choice to become inevitable.'