Berlioz: Requiem

Telarc's classic Robert Shaw Atlanta recording of the Berlioz Requiem is still available after all these years. Now, Shaw's old orchestra and the chorus he created and trained have remade this massive work with Atlanta's new music director, Robert Spano. Spano's is a 21st-century take on Berlioz's masterpiece, a streamlined, machine-tooled interpretation that's among the fastest on disc. He makes his tempos work, although some sections, such as the start of the Lacrymosa, seem slightly rushed. Shaw's tenor soloist in the Sanctus was sweet-voiced John Aler, whose timbre fit the French style better than the more muscular lyric tenor of Frank Lopardo. Shaw's chorus was outstanding, as is Spano's, although the latter is more youthful-sounding and more closely recorded. The Shaw Berlioz Requiem was an audiophile's delight in the 1980s and Spano's may become one in the 2000s, since the work, with its huge brass and percussion forces and spatially separated instruments, is a perfect vehicle for multichannel sound. In stereo, there's plenty of impact, enormous dynamic range, and some loss of orchestral detail. Sonics alone should make this a hit. --Dan Davis