Search - Felix [1] Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Emmanuel Chabrier :: Mendelssohn: Die erste Walpurgisnacht

A wow performance in unforgivable sound

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 02/07/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I've learned to regard the Archipel label as the rock bottom of historical reissues, at least as far as sound goes. It doesn't bother me to listen to a great performance in mono AM-radio sound, but here we have a tinny borken radio. It helps (slightly) that the vocal soloists are recorded fairly decently, up close, and wihtout much distortion. Orchestra and chorus, however, are uniformly dreadful in sound. I could grasp that Markevitch was at fever pitch in Mendelssohn's usually stodgy, painfully correct Die Erste Walpurgisnacht. He totally transforms the work, giving it the diabolical energy one hopes for but never hears in this work. (To make one even more irritated, Archipel puts the entrie 35 min. piece on one track.)





The Liszt Mephisto Waltz is actually worse in sound, being extracted from a worn-out LP, swishes, ticks, and all. Markvebitch appears to be doing nothing special from what I can glean. It would be credible that this is a Karl Muck preformance from 1915. Thingss don't improve in the Chabrier and Mozart dances. I never had much respect for the Vienna Sym., who do the Mendelssohn, but they are virtuosos compared to the Maggio Musicale Orch. of florence on the rest of the CD.



Boo.



"