This is an obvious pairing, as Bernhard Klee demonstrated for EMI when he recorded these Schumann requiems with Dusseldorf forces. Now Wolfgang Sawallisch has retaliated with singers, choir and orchestra drawn from his native Munich, although the soprano Helen Donath is common to both recordings. Klee has the bigger names among the soloists, with Nicolai Gedda and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the tenor and baritone, although neither has so much to do that it makes much difference. In fact, Thomas Moser and Jan-Hendrik Rootering blend better into the quartet, and the contralto contribution by the splendid Marjana Lipovsek in the Op. 148 Requiem is superior, in my opinion, to Doris Soffel's (EMI). Klee's interpretations are more dramatic, Sawallisch's more devotional.
But if you possess and are happy with the EMI disc, which is admirably recorded, I can see no compelling reason to acquire the new issue, fine as it is. Does one want or need two versions of these works in one's collection, I ask myself? Devoted to Schumann as I am, I confess that I find neither such an overwhelming musical experience that I would often make detailed comparisons. This is not to deny the beauties of this Requiem, which are most sympathetically presented by Sawallisch (no one to beat him in Schumann, I think). The choir's attack and clear diction in the Dies irae are admirable and they sing most tenderly in the Lacrymosa and in the serene Agnus Dei. The music flows so freely that it is difficult to reconcile such apparent spontaneity with the strict mathematical proportions into which Schumann divided the number of bars in various sections.
The Requiem fur Mignon is secular in spirit, being a setting of Goethe and related to the composer's other Faust works. One senses that he is more at ease with this text than with the Latin Mass, which appealed to him intellectually rather than spiritually. This Eurodisc recording is not as spacious in sound as EMI's but it has an intimacy that suits the music and if it tends to favour the choir slightly at the expense of the orchestra, I am not sure that is detrimental to Schumann. If I had to make a choice, it would be for Eurodisc because of Sawallisch.'