Gardiner's approach to this piece is refreshing with lively tempi, exquisite phrasing, vitality, and gives the mass an emotional center. The Monteverdi Choir also gives a fine performance, with careful attention to classical-style. Also, few choirs/choruses can match Moneverdi's tuning.
The soloists, too, give good performances. If you've ever wondered why some people love this work, you'll understand after you give this recording a listen. If you listen closely enough, you'll hear overtures to the mass Beethoven would write later in life, Missa Solemnis.
John Eliot Gardiner is one of the leading conductors in the active "authentic performances" movement in England, performing Baroque music but also extending his range into later repertoire. He first conducted at the age of 15, and after finishing school he studied at King's College, Cambridge. While still an undergraduate, he conducted the combined Oxford and Cambridge Singers on a 1964 tour of the Middle East and founded the Monteverdi Choir, which has consistently performed on his recordings since.
After graduation, he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger and then studied as a postgraduate at King's College, London, with early music leader Thurston Dart. His first notable engagement as a conductor was at a Promenade Concert in London in 1969 and he first conducted an opera in London (Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride) at Covent Garden in 1973.
He had continued conducting the Monteverdi Choir, then founded the English Baroque Soloists, specializing in Baroque music played on original-style instruments. The EBS first appeared at the 1977 Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and has appeared with the Monteverdi Choir on many recordings.
He made his American debut in 1979 leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, part of an active and often overlooked aspect of his career: conducting standard repertoire on modern instruments. This included a period as principal conductor (1980-1983) of the CBC Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; music director of the Opera de Lyon (1983-1988), which included founding an entirely new orchestra; and principal conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg (1991-1994).
He expanded his activities in the original-style instruments movement by recognizing that from the Classical era and well into the Romantic age there were distinctly different instrument designs than those that are standard today. As a result, he founded another new orchestra, the Orchéstre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, to specialize in that period with authentic instruments.
He has also been an active guest conductor, leading major orchestras of the world, including the Cleveland, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Vienna Philharmonic, and Philharmonia orchestras, and has conducted the Puccini opera Manon Lescaut at Glyndebourne. He led a cycle of all seven mature Mozart operas and has conducted over 250 recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Erato labels. He and Herbert von Karajan share the record for the most Gramophone Awards in a single year (three), while Gardiner has won more of them over the years than any other artist. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
TRACK LISTINGS
[01] - Gardiner - Opus 065 - Ah! perfido' - 'Per pieta'
[02] - Gardiner - Opus 112 Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt
[03] - Gardiner - Opus 086 - Mass in C - 1 Mov - Kyrie
[04] - Gardiner - Opus 086 - Mass in C - 2 Mov - Gloria
[05] - Gardiner - Opus 086 - Mass in C - 3 Mov - Credo
[06] - Gardiner - Opus 086 - Mass in C - 4 Mov - Sanctus - Benedictus
[07] - Gardiner - Opus 086 - Mass in C - 5 Mov - Agnus Dei
FLAC tracks (EAC Rip): 250 MB | MP3 - 320 kbs: 140 MB | Covers
Archives have 5% of the information for restoration
FLAC
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
OR MP3 320 kbps
Part 1 | Part 2
