The intonation of some members of the Singverein occasionally wavers — there was no heating in the hall and some probably had not seen a decent meal for a week — but Karajan and Legge were endlessly patient and Schwarzkopf herself stood in the midst of the sopranos in many of the takes to give them added confidence and surety. The result is an articulation of the text so tender, so sad, so telling that one is no longer listening to a performance of a piece of music but to a sublime meditation on sacred texts by men and women all too acutely aware in the aftermath of war of the truth of the words and the sublimity of Brahms's setting of them

Mark Obert-Thorn’s work seems to have the edge in transparency: try the second movement, around the five minute mark, to hear just what the Karajan of 1947 could achieve texturally...One really receives the impression of Brahmsian vastness…..This performance is forever recommended. That Naxos has provided a transfer at such price and quality zooms the recommendation in on this issue.