MoTab we ought to hear

To begin: I’m not a fan of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s sound. At all. (Actually, i’m not a fan of much of what you might call the “Mormon sound”—Gladys Knight was right about the, well, boring nature of our music.) However, i will readily admit that they have the right sound for some stuff—and so there are two things i’d like to hear (preferably live, but i’ll take a high-quality recording) MoTab do before i die, ’cause they have the perfect sound for them.

The first, and the longest shot: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. You have to figure this one isn’t going to happen. (Legend says they backed out of a recording in the 1960s when they read it—it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s true, since the book has lyrics that translate to stuff such as “May God grant, may the gods grant/​What i have in mind:/​That I may loose/​the chains of her virginity.”) Of course, when i taught at Brigham Young University (this was right around the turn of the century) the BYU combined choirs did an absolutely amazing performance of Carmina Burana, so maybe Mormons have mellowed out about singing Latin- and Middle German-language erotic and drinking songs. I can only hope.

The second, and much more along the lines of what i’d expect from MoTab, is Mozart’s Requiem. They may have done a recording of this, in fact, and i’ve missed it (they recently released a recording of Mack Wilberg’s Requiem, which may be getting in the way of what i went looking for, and i know they’ve done Brahms’s German Requiem)—it seems their sort of thing. Once again, they have the right sound for it.

(And if they’ve actually done either of these, pointers to them would be appreciated. Thanks.)