Conductor
Frieder Bernius is not as familiar a figure as some of his counterparts in the early music choral scene, but one would hardly know it considering the breadth and depth of his recording catalog. He has been remarkably consistent over the years, founding and cultivating groups of his own until they can manage a distinctive and satisfying sound. That sound draws on the early music movement but merges its influences with the typical rich, burnished sound of German choral singing. It all works fabulously well in this recording of
Schubert's
Mass in A flat major, D. 678, a tuneful but complex work. Both
Bernius' choral ensemble, the
Kammerchor Stuttgart, which he has led for decades, and his orchestra, the
Hofkapelle Stuttgart, are on the small side; the choir has 34 singers, the orchestra 35 strings, with paired winds and brass. It is not a full-sized modern choir, but neither is it aggressively minimal.
Schubert's choral melodies are lush but clean.
Bernius is always on the nose in picking soloists, and his four here,
Johanna Winkel,
Elvira Bill,
Florian Sievers, and
Arttu Kataja, are superb, but perhaps the strongest feature of
Bernius' performance is his control over the overall structure. The mass moves from A flat major in the Kyrie to the unlikely key of E major in the Gloria and then works its way back home; in
Bernius' hands, this seems entirely natural.
Haenssler Classic's sound on this 2023 release from the Liederhalle Stuttgart is entirely idiomatic, and this is the icing on the cake for a wonderful
Schubert choral release. ~ James Manheim
