On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Hector Berlioz's death, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and it's chief conductor Philippe Jordan dedicated a programmatic focus to the French composer in the 2018-19 season. In this context, in November 2018, Philippe Jordan presented the frequently performed Symphonie fantastique op. 14 in the Wiener Musikverein, and her rarely heard sister work L�lio ou Le retour � la vie op. 14b. The acclaimed concert experience now also appears as a live recording on the orchestra's own label. Soloists include not only tenor Cyrille Dubois and baritone Florian Sempey, but also the acclaimed French bass Jean-Philippe Lafonte as narrator and the Singverein led by Johannes Prinz.

Berlioz wrote his own text for L'Enfance du Christ, which he composed in 1853 and 1854. It was first performed at the Salle Herz, Paris on 10 December 1854, with Berlioz conducting. He described the work as a Trilogie sacr�e. The first of it's three sections depicts King Herod ordering the massacre of all newborn children in Judaea; the second shows Mary, Joseph, and Jesus setting out for Egypt to avoid the slaughter, having been warned by angels; and the final section portrays their arrival in the Egyptian town of Sa�s where they are given refuge by a family of Ishmaelites. Berlioz was not religious as an adult but remained all his life susceptible to the beauty of the religious music that had enraptured him as a child. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and MSO Chorus and an outstanding team of soloists in this Surround Sound SACD recording.

Berlioz: Concert Overtures

BERLIOZ: Requiem, Op. 5

Berlioz: Vocal Works With Orchestra

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“ ... [Davis] on fine form here with the Bergen Philharmonic. The opening to the Corsaire holds no terrors for them ... The lesser-known overtures reveal their virtues well. Davis, abetted by an excellent recording, responds vividly to Berlioz’s pioneering orchestral textures...” - John Warrack – International Record Review – February 2013

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The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis here perform seven dazzling orchestral overtures by Hector Berlioz, a composer who excelled in blending literary and musical elements into highly energetic and personal creations.

The overtures are widely varied in mood, as are the operas from which they were drawn. Berlioz wrote his first large-scale instrumental composition, the Overture to Les Francs-juges, in 1826, the year in which he enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire. Even though the opera itself was never performed, Berlioz remained proudly affectionate of the overture, which was played all over Germany and Holland in its early days. His second opera, Benvenuto Cellini, followed in 1838; its music gave rise both to the opera’s overture and to the concert overture Le Carnaval romain which depicts its subject in brilliant colour through breathtakingly vibrant orchestration.

The comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict took its inspiration from Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. The overture draws on an intense solo scene for Béatrice and adds elements of the cheerful banter that make up the story of the title characters’ playful courtship.

When Berlioz visited the Hungarian capital Pest in 1846, it was suggested to him that one way of winning the hearts of the audiences there would be to make an arrangement of the beloved Rákóczy March, which up until that point had been known only as a piano piece. Berlioz agreed, and on the very night before he left for Pest, he put together his own orchestral version of the piece. It was a resounding success when performed at his first concert, to the extent that Berlioz promptly included it in the large work on which he was working at the time: La Damnation de Faust.

Le Roi Lear, Le Corsaire, and Waverley have one thing in common: all are independent concert pieces that have been given the title overture as in many respects they do resemble opera overtures – but none is in actual fact connected to an opera. The composer here took his inspiration from literary works. Le Roi Lear, for instance, is a remarkable tone portrait of Shakespeare’s deranged king, full of energy and anger, while Le Corsaire may be loosely based on Byron’s The Corsair. Berlioz based Waverley on a novel of the same name by Sir Walter Scott, and the score bears a quotation in English: ‘Dreams of love and Lady’s charms, give place to honour and to arms.’ The contrast expressed so well in this simple quotation is equally evident in the music itself. Here the ‘dreams of love’ unfold in a long cello melody, which is repeated with richer orchestrations, before leading into the vigorous musical depiction of ‘honour and arms’. - Chandos

It was whilst on the verge of loving despair that Hector Berlioz wrote this Symphonie Fantastique, �pisode de la vie d'un artiste (episode from the life of an artist) where he portrays the obsession of this impossible love and the torture it inflicts upon the young man who has almost gone mad. It was first performed in December 1830 and immediately became the emblem of the musical avant-garde, making use of an unheard of soundscape which drove the audience into a frenzy which had never before been known for an orchestral work in France. Revived here by the great Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the concert is filled with symbolic works by the composer with the spendid overture from the Corsaire, and the cantata, La Mort de Cl�op�tre. And finally, two mythical extracts from the great work by Berlioz, his opera, Les Troyens.

In his ‘Symphonie fantastique’, Hector Berlioz describes “Various situations in the life of an artist” in the work’s five movements, and by that he means not least himself. This brilliantly orchestrated score radically expanded the vocabulary of symphonic music, bringing these scenes to life in the most impressive way possible. Under the direction of General Music Director Fabio Luisi, the first record of the new Philharmonia Records label presents a live recording of this symphonic milestone from the Philharmonia Zürich out of the Opernhaus Zürich.

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William Primrose Collection, Vol. 1

William Primrose Collection, Vol. 4

Burkhard Fritz, Laurent Naouri, Brindley Sherratt, Mikhail Petrenko, Maija Kovalevska, Philippp Stoezl, and Kate Aldrich star in this Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic production of the Berlioz opera conducted by Valery Gergiev.

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BERLIOZ: Requiem, Op. 5

After completing her training as a concert pianist and gaining her diploma, Vesselina Kasarova went on to study singing at the Music Academy of Sofia. She has since then given concerts and recitals throughout Europe, the USA and Japan. Ivor Bolton is chief conductor of the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, with whom he has appeared annually at the Salzburg Festival since 2000, and on tour (including at the 2006 BBC Proms in London), and with whom he has already built up an extensive discography including a critically successful series of Bruckner Symphony recordings. The Sinfonieorchester Basel, rooted in the nation's northwest, is one of the oldest and most important orchestras in Switzerland. Of Madness and Love features vocal and instrumental works of Hector Berlioz inspired by the words of William Shakespeare.

BERLIOZ: Harold in Italy / Les Francs-Juges

Directed by Andy Sommer. Starring Orchestre de Paris, Berlioz, Christoph Eschenbach.

In the history of recording, there have been literally dozens and dozens of recordings of Hector Berlioz's monstrous masterpiece "Symphonie Fantastique", a work that is arguably the first musical masterpiece of terror. Judging by the performance given here on Naxos by Yoav Talmi and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, plenty! With the recording quality as high as it is, and the recording itself very well priced, this version of Berlioz's nightmarish masterpiece has much to show, including the piece de resistance, the "Witches Sabbath" in the fifth movement, with the use of the ancient chant "Dies Irae" ringing out in the trombones (a chant that would find it's way into the music of such chilling movies as A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Poltergeist).

HUNGARIAN FESTIVAL

Berlioz: Damnation De Faust (La) (The Damnation of Faust)

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