I am not sure why Erato has chosen to emblazon on the front of this latest recording of the Petite messe solennelle the timing 72'10''. Such an announcement is the equivalent of a shop informing its customers that they will be short-changed. A performance of the Messe that is over so quickly must either be cut or remarkably rushed. The only previous single-CD recording of the Messe, by David Mason's Combattimento on Meridian ( CDE84133, 12/88), ran to nearly 80 minutes and was cut. The new Erato isn't cut but it is a performance that is more or less consistently rapid in tempo and uncaringly brusque in manner. It is astonishing to hear the lovely unaccompanied ''Christe eleison'' dispatched in a mere 60 seconds (a minute and a half to two minutes is more usual) or the ''Cum sancto spiritu'' rendered comic and conspiratorial at a tempo that almost matches Scimone's. (Scimone's Philips performance would be a possible front-runner were it not for its hell-for-leather locomotion in one of the most buoyant and gamesome ecclesiastical perorations since the time of Haydn.)
Where Corboz has his unfettered way with soloists and choir, in the Credo or Sanctus, the music-making is astonishingly prosaic. In the Kyrie the piano part bumps somewhat loudly along whilst the choir gives a somewhat hazy account of the text. Gasdia, the most distinguished of the four soloists, stages an incipient rebellion in the ''Crucifixus'' where vocal line and piano accompaniment end up being strikingly at odds but she can do nothing about the hasty propulsion of the duet ''Qui tollis''. The bass gives a big public performance of the ''Quoniam'' and lacks a proper trill, the tenor treats the ''Domine Deus'' as any Italian comprimario might.
Interestingly, the principal pianist is Ludano Sgrizzi whose liking for fleet, staccato playing was also evident on a much earlier Erato recording of the Messe issued in the UK by World Records some years ago (6/71There is, though, a world of difference between the two performances, with Edwin Loehrer as sensitive and introspective in his direction as Corboz is insensitive and extrovert. Indeed, Erato would have done better to reissue the Loehrer. The new recording is no great advance technically, nor has it been very carefully assembled. Not for the first time on record, the preface to the ''Cum sancto spiritu'' has been recorded separately from the chorus itself and the join ill-disguised.
On paper, the 1979 recording that Ars Nova issued and Decca later reissued, has a good deal going for it. But it, too, fails the work. The general direction of the performance, some occasional lugubriousness apart, is unexceptionable but the playing and choral singing is often lumpy and loud. Certainly, there is a lack of fine adjustment in the balancing of choir and piano; and the singing itself lacks grace and buoyancy. The recording, big-bodied and rather close, is not apt to the courtly scale of the work, and the soloists often seem overweening. Raimondi's groaning, hung-over, heavy-lidded singing is totally inappropriate and even Freni is prone to over-statement and distracting underlinings and prolongations. In the ''Preludio religioso'' there is discolouration in some of the piano's higher notes. The Pergolesi is a generous and genial fill-up, and it slips by very nicely after what is perhaps a rather too over-romanticized start, but the set as a whole cannot be recommended.
In general, the Rossini Messe is not a work that one can relish or enjoy in a less than first-rate performance. For that you must go Cleobury with the King's College Choir and the Labeque sisters on EMI (or should it return to the catalogue, Sawallisch's live 1972 Eurodisc set).'