Like Sawallisch’s EMI disc, this latest offering from Rilling and his Stuttgart forces brings together Schubert’s last three sacred works: the large-scale Mass in E flat, a powerful, often disturbing fusion of formal liturgical tradition and Schubert’s own subjective romanticism; and the two smaller occasional pieces whose simplicity and serene grace contrast startlingly with the confessional masterpieces – the String Quintet and the last three piano sonatas – composed in that same final autumn of 1828. As ever, Rilling’s performances are honest and carefully prepared, with good orchestral work (particularly in the wind department) and firm, well-nourished singing from the excellent Gachinger Kantorei. The soloists, with limited scope in the Mass, do well, though Sibylla Rubens’s pleasing, slightly tremulous soprano occasionally fails to project sufficiently in the “Et incarnatus est” and Benedictus. In the Offertory, taken more slowly and reverentially than on the Sawallisch recording, Scot Weir deploys his attractive lyric tenor with sensitivity and impressive breath control.
Rilling’s reading of the Mass has many good things: the visionary Sanctus, for instance, is properly overwhelming, its successive climaxes shrewdly calculated; and with lively tempos, incisive choral attack and lucid textures, the huge fugues at “Cum sancto spiritu” and “Et vitam venturi” avoid the trap of ponderousness. Elsewhere, though, direct comparisons tend to favour Sawallisch, whose conducting of rather larger forces is that much more expressive and dramatic, with a more subtle rhythmic sense. Take the Kyrie, where Sawallisch thinks in longer spans and, judging rubato more persuasively (Rilling’s slowings sound exaggerated to me both here and in the Benedictus), creates a more inevitable lyrical flow; or the opening of the Credo, where, opting for a brisk, no-nonsense tempo and smoothing out Schubert’s hairpin dynamics, Rilling misses the sense of awe and mystery so well caught by Sawallisch. The final “Dona nobis pacem”, too, enters very emphatically under Rilling after the cataclysmic Agnus Dei, in contrast to Sawallisch’s hushed, almost dazed supplication. Rilling fans will certainly want this new disc; but Sawallisch, at mid price, remains my prime recommendation.
Sound quality and balance on the new disc are fine, unlike the priceless translation of the (none too accurate) German note, which tells us, among other things, that “much of the most extensive movement, the Credo is written in stile antico resp. the classical chordal style”.'