The sound on these Verdi discs was superb - excellent stereo for the time - though for a bargain release, which the Live Classics was, there was no filtering or editing. And here I think is the major difference between these old discs and this BR Klassik one. I found the performance on the new discs a bit over-compressed, and lacking in atmosphere - and definitely in need of a volume push much of the time. I think Ralph generally gets the merits of the performance right - but I'm not sure I felt much Muti rawness in it, which he had in spades in his early years. It IS a raw performance but it rarely comes across that way.
Muti is quoted in the booklet as saying that any subsequent recording could never match it. Going through the Warner Muti box set recently, I listened to his Philharmonia Verdi Requiem (made before this live one) which I haven't heard for decades. It shares some of the same singers as in Munich (and Munich would have had the Philharmonia's tenor, Luchetti, rather than Carreras, had the former not cancelled at short notice), an equally inspired orchestra, and a conductor equally generating white-hot intensity throughout. I'm not sure you can really get a cigarette paper between the two performances in terms of the thrilling power they generate - although given the flatter recording quality of the BR Klassik disc the Philharmonia requiem sounds just a bit more wild, a bit more hair-raising.
It's worth looking out for the Live Classics just for the unvarnished sound you'll get. But, the performance is a killer; but then so is his studio one.
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