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Title: Some signs of life, but is the corpse just twitching?
Review: Colin Davis's Sixties recording of the Mozart Requiem has lasted for forty years as a perfect example of the middle way in this work. It uses a mid-sized orchestra and chorus that produces a romatnic but not Victorian sound. As an alternative to the lumbering verions of the past and the anemic "period" readings to come, Davis's account satisfied on all counts. As so often happens with him, this later remake (1990) with the Bavarian Radio Symphony is tired and sluggish, a pale shadow of Davis's earlier triumph. The chorus is large and recorded in a cavernous space. The solo quartet shows ability but comes nowhere near the earlier vocalists in naturalness and simplicity. There are occasional signs of lfie, but overall this performance is its own requiem.
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