Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Jess Dandy (contralto) et al; Minnesota Chorale; Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä
BIS BIS-2496 (CD/SACD) 82:40 mins
If only the whole of this impressive performance were as assured as the first part, Mahler’s marvellous setting of the hymn to the Creator Spirit, or the last 20 minutes, when the treatment of Goethe’s heavenbound final scene in Faust lifts us up on angel wings. The problem, as so often with interpretations of the big operatic act that is Part Two, is one of overall pace and difficult casting among the all-important soloists.
Neither baritone Julian Orlishausen as Pater Ecstaticus nor bass-baritone Christian Immler are quite emphatic enough – in other words, neither ecstatic or profound – in their brief roles, though both are fine in the upper reaches. And we hit a bit of a reef around the soaring-in of the Mater Gloriosa (aka the BVM); Vänskä doesn’t keep it moving enough, and the Minnesota strings, though helpfully boasted by the ever-superb engineering in Minneapolis’s Orchestra Hall, need more vibrancy.
The rest works, even given that Carolyn Sampson, originally down to sing just the brief but crucial role of the voice from on high, had to take on the demanding, ideally Wagnerian role(s) of Soprano 1. She may lack the amplitude of Soprano 2, Jacquelyn Wagner, but it all works.
Mezzo Sasha Cooke and contralto Jess Dandy add distinctive timbres, too, and the trio of ‘penitent women’, dynamically careful, is a real beauty. Neither is Barry Banks an heroic tenor, but he hits the high notes and floats the long lines with Italianate aplomb. The amateur choruses catch the fervour of the event, and a seraphic trumpet distinguishes the final massive optimism.
