War Requiem (Gardiner) (1993)

"In John Eliot Gardiner’s DG War Requiem, recorded in 1992 at the Marienkirche, Lübeck, the boys’ chorus is placed at one end of the building with remaining choral and orchestral groups at the other. Distanced forces and a cavernous acoustic often rob the music of clarity and detailing (particularly where Britten’s scoring is at its densest, as in much of the “Dies Irae”). The over-resonant setting also affects the clarity of the lower strings, so cello and bass lines in the “Libera Me” don’t register firmly enough. Microphone placement seems to change in the “Sanctus”, where more accurate balance is achieved between soft percussion and voices at the start, and also throughout the penultimate section, “It seemed that out of battle I escaped”. This is sung very atmospherically by Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Boje Skovhus, and is the most successful episode in Gardiner’s account. "(classicstoday.com)