Just two months after the appearance of Masaaki Suzuki’s C minor Mass, here is another that takes an interesting editorial viewpoint on the unfinished work. In this case the task of filling in the gaps has been assumed by the conductor Frieder Bernius in collaboration with the musicologist Uwe Wolff. They have not attempted to contrive the missing movements à la Robert Levin but have instead completed the movements with missing orchestrations (‘Credo’ and ‘Et incarnatus est’) and reconsidered the sources for the Sanctus and Benedictus. The general listener will hear little to discombobulate in these latter movements, while trumpets are added in the ‘Credo’ and new string parts (but not horns, pace Maunder and Eder) generated for the ‘Incarnatus’.

That’s the science bit; but editorial decisions go for nothing until they are performed. In a way it is a pity that this recording follows so soon after Suzuki’s, an Editor’s Choice in the December issue. Bernius takes a similarly broad approach but his choir seems reticent in comparison with the finest recordings, lacking the blazing commitment that is so evident in the best ensembles. The two solo women match well in the duet and trio of the Gloria, although Sarah Wegener sounds stretched by the slow tempo of the Kyrie and the ensemble comes unstuck rather in the ‘Laudamus te’ and the ‘Quoniam’. Wegener sustains the ‘Incarnatus’ well, however, and is finely accompanied by the woodwind soloists of the Hofkapelle Stuttgart.

The bonus is a second recording of the ‘Credo’ with the editorial additions stripped away – an exercise of a type I’ve only come across in Christoph Spering’s similarly stripped-back performance of the Requiem (Naïve, 5/02). Fascinating but, I fear, not enough to persuade me away from Suzuki.