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Emmy
Loose (soprano)
Hilde Ceska (soprano)
Gertrud Burgstaler-Schuster (contralto)
Anton Dermota (tenor)
Alfred Poell (bass)
Vienna Akademie Kammerchor
Vienna Symphony Orchestra
conductor: Hermann Scherchen Recorded in 1950
Released as 3 Westminster LPs: WL 50-37 - 50-39
Download ID: 194449/194450
Durations: Part One - 64'05" Part Two - 60'35"
Part
1
Part
2
Play
Kyrie Eleison
Bill
Rosen sponsored the transfer, remastering and release of this recording.
I
have collected many B Minor Masses, many much more finely recorded
than the Scherchen. But none, for me, has ever touched the infinite
the way his does...
- Bill Rosen
"My
grandmother gave me $15 in 1951 for my 19th birthday. She told me to spend
it on some good music. I was in college at the time and I rather brashly
asked the choir director, "What is the greatest piece of music ever
written?" With not much hesitation, he answered, "The Bach
B Minor Mass". At the time, I was very much into classical music,
but I was quite unfamiliar with Bach or Handel or the Baroque style. Nonetheless,
I went to the largest record dealer in Los Angeles and bought the Westminster
recording of Hermann Scherchen's performance of the B Minor Mass.
When
I played it, I was horribly disappointed. I couldn't make head or tails
out of it. I thought the music was harsh, unmelodic, weird. I was tempted
to return it. I particurly hated the long, opening Kyrie. The
orchestration with the harsh trumpets I thought primitive and brutal.
I made several more attempts, but finally put the album away in a drawer.
About
six months later, our college (UCLA) chorus began to rehearse the Mozart
Requiem. I was utterly taken with the great fugue (Kyrie Eleison)
and its repetition at the end of the work. I was so entranced with the
music that I couldn't get it out of my mind. I decided to take the Bach
B Minor out and give it another listen and suddenly I understood it
and felt it. I played it over and over and I could hear nothing else
for a while (although we kept rehearsing the Mozart). Since then (I
was 20), the Bach B Minor Mass and especially the opening Kyrie has
always appeared to me as the acme of musical spirituality. The first
voice of the opening fugue has always seemed not music, but a pulse
of the universe.
In
the ensuing 53 years I have collected many B Minor Masses, many much
more finely recorded than the Scherchen. But none, for me, has ever
touched the infinite the way his does."
Bill
Rosen.
Restorer's
notes: When Bill's LPs arrived it was with some trepidation that
I began the restoration. Bill had generously offered to start a sponsorship
scheme with a recording which is perhaps the most dear to him. I took
the first LP out of its polythene sleeve, carefully cleaned it and placed
it on the turntable, apprehensive of the six sides I had promised to
work on.
The
stylus lowers gently onto the treasured vinyl and the opening Kyrie
eleison begins. I am horrified. The sound is dreadful - as if the
master tape had been thoroughly mangled, chewed and spat out by a particularly
unruly tape machine (which I suspect it had). The prospect of two hours
of this is terrifying.
And
then, after about 36 seconds, a silence - a pause - and the orchestra
comes in perfectly, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Although the condition
is to be revisited more mildly for a couple of seconds later in the
same side, there is otherwise no repeat of it.
It
took me five days of work, on and off, to correct those opening few
bars to the degree you can now hear. Had the entire recording been in
a similar condition I'd either be working on it still, or more likely
locked up!
I
decided therefore to make the full 15'50" of this opening available
as our sample movement - I hope you'll enjoy it as much as both Bill
and now I do. - Andrew Rose
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