If one were to encounter this fine performance in the concert hall, one would surely enjoy it while it was happening and retain pleasant memories of it after it ended.
Morten Schuldt-Jensen is clearly a talented choral conductor, and under his skillful direction, the Gewandhaus-Kinderchor sings with much energy and more enthusiasm. Tonally sweet soprano
Sibylla Rubens, technically solid tenor Andreas Karasiak, and interpretatively commanding bass
Stephan MacLeod sing with much fire and more fervor. The
Leipziger Kammerorchester is a capable if distinctly on the small-side ensemble and it plays with much persuasiveness, if somewhat more professionalism. However, encountering this performance in a recording, one would have the opportunity to pick nits in the playing -- the
Kammerorchester is not always exactly together with the Kinderchor -- and find fault with the singing --
Rubens does tend toward the saccharine and
MacLeod does lean toward the stolid. Worse, one would also have the opportunity to compare it with the great recordings of the past --
Karl Böhm's deeply human and profoundly spiritual performance on DG with the clarion
Gundula Janowitz, the heroic
Peter Schreier, the magnificent
Martti Talvela, the superlative Wiener Singverein, and the not-quite-in-the-same-league-as-the-
Wiener-Philharmoniker-but-still-superb
Wiener Symphoniker immediately come to mind -- and, unfortunately, a fine performance cannot stand up to a transcendent performance. Naxos' sound is typically clean, but no cleaner than DG's, and a whole lot less evocative.