There have been a lot of Mozart Requiems on record lately, on modern instruments and on period ones, in Sussmayr's version and in recent revisions that aspire towards a text more Mozartian than his own pupil's. Here we have two relatively traditional versions, one new and one reissued. Listening to them alongside the two comparative ones cited above, I am much struck by how much more impassioned and more committed these English versions are than the German ones. George Guest's new recording is distinguished by its deliberate tempos but also its very powerful rhythmic momentum and an expressive intensity of a kind one might not expect from a conductor and choir who belong to the English cathedral tradition. The choir is first class; fine, confident ringing trebles (not a Vienna Boys' Choir sound, true, but not necessarily worse or less authentic for that), excellent firm, clean basses and fresh tenors, with just a touch of Anglican hoot about the altos to remind one perhaps a little too forcibly of the recording's provenance—for this really isn't an appropriate sound for Mozart. Throughout, the choral singing has a rare strength and vigour. I was very much struck by the clarity and balance of the recording; even in the biggest tuttis, with everyone playing and singing full out, you can hear the basset-horns and be aware of the special colouring they give to the texture. The recording was made in St John's College Chapel and the reverberance—noticeable particularly in the comet-like tail of sound to the trombone notes of the ''Tuba mirum''—is entirely apt to the music. As to the solo singing, the level is satisfactory but not, taken all round, more than that. One is aware of opportunities for poetic moments not quite realized. The ECO are on very good form. There are one or two small flaws of ensemble (for example a minutely early organ entry); but as a whole this seems to me one of the most serious intense readings of the work I have come across and one I should be happy to return to often.
If the Guest recording clearly places the work in an ecclesiastical setting, Sir Colin Davis's long-admired one of 20 years ago, now reissued on CD, reminds one of Mozart the opera composer. Some may find the variations in tempo (rallentandos dramatic hesitations and the like), and in dynamic level, a shade too theatrical—and I fancy that Davis himself would do the work more broadly and more soberly now. Yet there is nothing that doesn't arise direct from the music, nothing that strikes a false note, nothing that fails to make an eloquent point. I find it often revealing, always compelling. The choral singing, of course by a mixed choir, Is sure and strong; the solo singing is of a very high order with many exquisite moments afforded particularly by Helen Donath's sweet, ringing soprano and Ryland Davies's lyrical tenor (caught at its best).
It really doesn't make sense to recommend one of these recordings above the other, for they represent the work quite differently, as it were from opposite sides. But both seem to me far preferable to either of the two cited above; Schreier's Philips version seems to me highly professional but cool and wanting in interpretative character, while Karajan's on DG is so wholly dedicated to smoothness of surface that the passion, the sorrow and the dread that stand behind this music are simply ironed out—it happens to be about death, but could be about something quite different. Readers interested in period-instrument versions should see my recent review of Gardiner's recording. (Philips 420 197-2PH, 11/87).'