Poulenc and Franz Schubert. Gloria; Mass No. 5 in A♭, D. 678. Martin Lehmann, cond.; Elsa Benoit, sop.; Ulrike Malotta, alt.; Patrick Grahl, ten.; Klaus Häger, bs.; Holger Gehring, org.; Dresdner Kreuzchor; Dresden Philharmonie. Berlin Classics 0303770, 2025. CD, 63:03. https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9765840–mass-gloria
The programming logic here is personal—Lehmann grew up singing in the Dresdner Kreuzchor, came back as Kreuzkantor in 2022, and clearly wanted to mark the homecoming with something that meant something to him. Fair enough. The problem is that Poulenc’s Gloria requires a specific accent, a specifically French combination of irreverence and sincerity that has nothing to do with German choral tradition, however distinguished. Lehmann’s version is solid and musical; it is also about as French as a pretzel. Where Prêtre (especially the Carteri recording, remade by Pristine Audio) gives you sharp, slightly scandalous wit—pokes in the ribs from God—Lehmann delivers genial nudges from a polite ecclesiastical neighbor. Elsa Benoit doesn’t help, her soprano capable but colorless where the role wants a personality. Bernstein and Ozawa get closer to the idiom; if you want the real thing, Prêtre and Frémaux are not negotiable.
The Schubert Mass, though, is a genuine success. The A♭ Mass (D. 678) cost the composer three years of intermittent labor and got bounced from the imperial court for insufficient deference to the emperor’s taste. Sawallisch’s classic EMI recording treats it with such reverence that it collapses under the weight; his Credo and Agnus Dei alone run twelve minutes longer than Lehmann’s entire performance. Lehmann at 39:06 finds something Sawallisch missed entirely: the music breathes. The buoyancy, the transparency of the choral textures, the easy authority of the soloists—this is Schubert as a living composer, not a museum specimen. Harnoncourt is lighter than Sawallisch but still slower; among HIP options, Herreweghe and Gardiner are both strong, with Gardiner tossing in a first-version appendix for the curious. Lehmann, on modern instruments, beats most of them anyway. Buy it for the Schubert; program around the Poulenc. B+
