Subwoofer Classical

The first 70 minutes of this 94-minute hybrid disc (tracks 1-14) are a showcase for some of PentaTone’s excellent and varied releases, but unlike many samplers these are complete movements of works rather than faded out snippets. Listening to them one after the other makes one realise how brilliantly PentaTone have captured the acoustics of the many different recording venues and the overall high quality of their recordings…

Between 1961 and 1986, Herbert von Karajan made three recordings of the Mozart Requiem for Deutsche Grammophon, with little change in his conception of the piece over the years. This recording, from 1975, is, on balance, the best of them. The approach is Romantic, broad, and sustained, marked by a thoroughly homogenized blend of chorus and orchestra, a remarkable richness of tone, striking power, and an almost marmoreal polish. Karajan viewed the Requiem as idealized church music rather than a confessional statement awash in operatic expressiveness. In this account, the orchestra is paramount, followed in importance by the chorus, then the soloists. Not surprisingly, the singing of the solo quartet sounds somewhat reined-in, especially considering these singers' pedigrees. By contrast, the Vienna Singverein, always Karajan's favorite chorus, sings with a huge dynamic range and great intensity, though with an emotional detachment nonetheless. Perfection, if not passion or poignancy, is the watchword. The Berlin orchestra plays majestically, and the sound is pleasingly vivid.

This version of Holst’s endearing masterpiece, “The Planets”, sounds very good in Naxos’ super audio 5.1 technology. I do not have the point one (subwoofer) hooked up in my house and assume, by listening to the recording in 5.0, that the timpani — which are already very powerful and forward placed — would be explosive if you listened in 5.1. The sound is very good otherwise, with wide ranging and natural orchestral body and timbre. It is not the best super audio sound I’ve heard but it is good and a big improvement over the stereo sound on the last version of “The Planets” I purchased, the one Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle released last year.