CLASSICAL CHORUS CARRIES LISTENER TO HELL.(Show)

"O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden"; "Kyrie." Michel Corboz conducts the orchestra and chorus of the Gulbenkian Foundation. (Erato):

Visions of Hell floated around 19th-century Europe, thanks mainly to Goethe's poems. Hector Berlioz was enthralled early by the poem describing the witches' sabbath, and Felix Mendelssohn worked a decade on his setting of Goethe's work, finally bringing it out as "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" in 1842.

Conductor Corboz brings fervor to the performance, although his orchestra is a long step below the top rank of European music-making. The chorus, however, enters the whirling scenes of nature and supernatural terror. The totality is …