Reissues have become big business and, occasionally, a source of rare joy.
(By "reissue," I mean both CD versions of LPs and first-time commercial
publications of radio broadcasts, "etc.")

The fourth batch of "BBC Legends" is coming out in February, and the two
I heard so far -- a 1962 Irmgard Seefried Wolf-Schubert-Schumann-Brahms
recital, and the Jascha Horenstein-BBC/NSO "Das Lied von der Erde" with
Alfreda Hodgson and, especially, John Mitchinson -- are well, well worth
having.  (Horenstein's lecture on "Das Lied" is a great bonus.)

Among the other BBC reissues:  Sviatoslav Richter's 1961 Royal Albert Hall
concert of the two Liszt concerti (with Kyril Kondrashin, *not* the ideal
conductor for Liszt); 1979 Mozart programs with Clifford Curzon, Daniel
Barenboim, and Benjamin Britten; Myra Hess in the Beethoven #5 (1957) and
#2 (1960), with Malcolm Sargent-BBC/SO; the 1955 Sibelius 90th birthday
concert with Beecham conducting the RPO; and more...

But the thrill of today belongs to the BMG/RCA Victor reissue of the 1960
Robert Shaw Bach B-Minor Mass, with OK-to-good soloists (Saramae Endich,
Adele Addison, Florence Kopleff, Mallory Walk, Ara Berberian), fabulous
instrumentalists (Joseph Eger, horn!  Ronald Roseman, oboe d'amore!), and
of course the chorus to die for.

For a year and a half now, I have lived with the Helmuth Rilling B-Minor
Mass at the Oregon Bach Festival, listening to it I don't know how many
times:  it was a towering accomplishment.  How does it compare with Shaw?
Even though the Eugene chorus is a great personal favorite, the absolute
perfection of the Shaw Chorale cannot be beat -- also, there was a single
performance in Oregon, and the Shaw recording was made after that amazing
36-performance national tour which "introduced" the Mass to this country.

The Shaw Kyrie -- as most orchestral portions -- is slow...  too slow,
even.  Rilling's tempi are "better," but whenever the chorus enters, the
Shaw recording becomes unsurpassable.  In Eugene, I thought portions such
as the finale of Part I, the beginning and end of the Credo, the choral
triple-play of the Confiteor, then Et Expecto leading into the ecstatically
swinging Sanctus, and later, the pulsating Osanna -- that nothing can be as
good as this.  But Shaw is, at times wrenchingly so.

How lucky to have both.

Janos Gereben/SF
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