They don't make them like this anymore. These are historical recordings, made in Salzburg and Vienna in 1954 and 1955, and if you've ever wanted to hear what Mozart sounded like when performed by people for whom Wagner represented an absolute sound ideal, then you need look no further. Conductors
Bernhard Paumgartner and
Rudolf Moralt (leading the Missa Brevis in B flat major, K. 257) extract monumental sound from the Mozarteum Kammerchor, the
Wiener Sängknaben (Vienna Choir Boys), and the Wiener Kammerchor and the full-size orchestras that back them, creating a remarkably similar sound despite the varied forces and recording locations. In the Missa Brevis in C major, K. 257, "Credo Mass," the unison announcements of the word "Credo" that give the mass its name hit like a ton of bricks, and in the Missa Brevis, the boy soprano and alto solos in the Incarnatus sound like Rhine maidens frolicking in the mist. At times it's ridiculous; in the solo passages of the Missa Brevis, the boy singers are overwhelmed by the
Vienna Philharmonic's wall of sound, and Eine kleine Freimauerkantate, K. 623 (A Little Masonic Cantata), is anything but little. Yet musicality will out, and there are plenty of things here that succeed for reasons beyond sheer novelty. The Credo Mass has some very daring harmonic moves by the young Mozart, and
Paumgartner brings out the impact of these. And if the cantata Dir, Seele des Weltalls, K. 429 (To You, Soul of the Universe), suffers from the same gigantism as the rest, the mystical text works in an unusual way here. The mono 24-bit, 96 kHz remastering is excellent, revealing the depth of the sound of all three choirs. A real blast from the past. There are no booklet notes at all, only a tracklist that identifies the recording locations only by city with an enigmatic "issued from original sources" notation.