This recording followed immediately after a performance of the oratorio that I attended at the Barbican. I regret that the discs are no more impressive than the live account, indeed rather less so as the engineering hardly helps to add clarity to what is a somewhat murky choral and orchestral sound. Indeed, both the reading and recording are inferior to those on the 21-year-old Philips under Sawallisch, but the new set is the first in English on CD and so may be welcome to those who must have the work in the vernacular.
The drawbacks of the new version when compared to the older one can at once be heard by listening to ''Thanks be to God'', the chorus near the start of Part 2. The recording of the London Symphony Chorus is too recessed and its sound too South-of-England mushy in all sections apart from the sopranos. The tempo is about right and the attack clean enough but only in a generalized way. Turn to the Philips and you hear a more forward sound, a far crisper rhythm and, most important of all, a choral tone that is admirably focused with all parts clearly delineated. In case that comparison might be an exception in favour of Philips, I then tried one with the next chorus, the highly dramatic ''Woe to him''. Hickox, as throughout, does his best to inject drama into the performance, but his attempts are vitiated again by the indifferent ensemble of the chorus and a want of incisiveness in the orchestra (here the Leipzig Gewandhaus for Sawallisch shows its clear superiority over the LSO). Sawallisch, as throughout, achieves just the urgency required by Mendelssohn's demands and in consequence the music takes on new life.
In the next item, you can compare and contrast two of the soloists. In the recitative, ''Man of God'', Arthur Davies sounds too generalized in his phrasing and his line is uneven. Peter Schreier, by contrast, goes to the heart of the matter as Obadiah advises Elijah to place his trust in God. When Elijah sings, we hear from Willard White a reasonably firm tone, a well-maintained line, but little sense of a long association with the music such as Theo Adam offers for Sawallisch. At the live performance the role was sung by John Rawnsley, more lively and histrionic if not as accurate as White. In the great aria that follows, ''It is enough'', White again produces an honest, well-sung rendering, but it is an extroverted, four-square performance not to be compared with the inward readings by the likes of John Cameron and Harold Williams in the famous recordings under Sargent (nla), also in English. White makes little or nothing of the wonderful phrase ''And I, even I'', not sounding world weary enough here or at the reprise of the opening words where stark desperation should be heard in the voice, just what we hear from Adam.
Rosalind Plowright is properly urgent and operatic as the distressed Widow, but finds the tessitura of ''Hear ye, Israel'' rather high for her. However, she conveys a presence as does Linda Finnie, who finds the note of grave compassion for her solos—''O rest in the Lord'' softly consoling—though she cannot match the golden tone of Dame Janet Baker in the Fruhbeck de Burgos set on EMI (nla). Davies is at his best in the tiny recitative about Elijah sleeping below a juniper tree, where one hears the inner feeling missing in his two main solos. How one longs for the distinctive enunciation and stylish phrasing of great oratorio tenors of the past.
Hickox, as I have implied, has the measure of the work and knows how to instil a chorus with conviction but the material here is simply not good enough. He is, however, to be castigated for opting for the traditional British way of giving to the choir the numbers Mendelssohn specifically assigned to a quartet or octet of soloists. This is no academic matter: the composer obviously intended a different texture for these from that a chorus offers. Sawallisch, by obeying Mendelssohn, makes my point for me. No, I stay faithful to the classic Philips set. Unless you must have the piece sung in English, it ought to be your choice, one of the most convincing choral readings the gramophone has given us.'