An amazing record, this: a performance of Mozart's Coronation Mass offered as a feast-day tribute to the Pope on St Peter's Day, 1985—European Music Year—a delightful gesture on the part of the conductor Herbert von Karajan! Given the dimensions of the Papal basilica, a work of such liveliness and delicacy was bound to present major problems to both performers and sound engineers. This explains why, compared with Karajan's earlier DG recording (2530 704, 2/77—LP only) all the movements had to be taken at a considerably slower tempo. Yet none of the work's youthful vitality appears to have suffered. The long reverberation was overcome partially by the skilful placing of microphones. The orchestra does tend to sound too close to the listener as a result, but when the echo comes through—in the rests—it enhances rather than detracts from the general effect of splendour: indeed, it occasionally plays a dramatic role in its own right, prolonging, for example, the soprano's pause on ''peccata'' in the Agnus Dei.
Karajan was contending with the hazards of live recording. But Mozart's Mass, performed in the context of a Papal liturgy and not merely in the concert hall or recording studio, has a sense of purpose and a high degree of added vitality which even the pilgrimage church of Maria Plain could not have provided. The Proper of the Mass is divided between the students of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music (painfully underrehearsed, especially the men in the ''Alleluia''), and the choir of the Sistine Chapel, who perform settings by Maestro Bartollucci. The Gospel is admirably chanted in Latin by the Deacon.
Perhaps the star performer—if one may say so with due respect—is really the Pope himself. He has a strong, well-timbred voice and he generally sings with clarity and restraint. Once, in hisPreface, he reverted to a slow detached emphatic style reminiscent of an earlier age. And once he let his heart and h is emotion take over as he sang the ''Peter noster'' with unexpectedly romantic fervour, together with the entire nave.
In short, this is something of a mixed bag, but also a remarkable sound document of a very special occasion, a great human celebration. Perhaps, too, a delicate reminder, in high places, that great music and expertise need to be encouraged and fostered in the liturgy, and never allowed to be ousted by triviality and incompetence.'