Due to SACD higher cost, I've heard only three M2's on SACD: This one, Kaplan's and Tilson-Thomas (on loan). Of course, I've heard (and have) many other M2's on LP, reel tape, cassette, and regular CD, over a span of about 40 years.
Due to the disappointment I felt after having just heard the Tilson-Thomas SFSO SACD, I decided to find a thread here about the Slatkin, and happily found one. Of the three M2's I've heard on SACD, this one is the best. Slatkin infuses a sense of urgency in his performance that makes it difficult to dismiss, despite the man's lackluster track record to please in live performances, particularly when he was here as music director of the Washington National Symphony. I did hear him do M2 live while he was here in Washington, and it was a decent performance, probably not as good as his SLSO recording, as I recall. The chorus is fine, as well as having the legendary Maureen Forrester as mezzo soloist and soprano Kathleen Battle approaching such a status. Balance between organ, orchestra, and chorus is fine, even if the organ is a slight bit on the quiet side. I believe the organ sounds electronic to my ears, as I believe Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis doesn't have a pipe organ, for I've never been there. Even if the sound is early digital and is only two-channel, this transfer of one of Telarc's most legendary recordings to the SACD medium is most successful, and very dynamic. Years ago, I had the LP version of this and have since sold it; as I recall, the LP was quite dynamic, and in comparison to the LP as I recall, quite possibly surpasses it. I would think that the regular CD version is the inferior-sounding of the three.
As to Tilson-Thomas, I had high hopes, but ended up on the disappointed side. I've felt for a long while that slow tempi are justified, as long as the conductor has things in overall control with his players and the work being played convinces listeners. That does not happen in Tilson-Thomas' performance. There are good things and there are bad things in this performance, and since it is a patchwork of three or four performances when the work was recorded live, I think this is where such an effort disappoints rather than pleases. The least-successful movement to my ears was the scherzo, with a couple of really odd extreme slow-downs in tempo toward the end. Probably the most successful movement was the Finale, with the huge drum roll one of the more-successfully recorded ones I've heard. Since I am a chorister in my music performing experience, I greatly enjoyed the chorus' contribution; they sang the choral ending "dead straight" (the term the director of the chorus I currently belong to uses to describe a lack of vibrato in singing). Sound-wise, this performance sounded compressed compared to Slatkin.
To me, Kaplan's DG VPO M2 SACD is more of a reference since it represents the only current recording I know of using the final critical edition of M2. Otherwise, it doesn't do a lot for me as a performance. Sound is fine. I prefer his earlier LSO performance.
Wade
