Not until the subdued applause at the end did it become apparent that this was taken live—the collector will own many studio jobs where the performers provide more noises off than this supernaturally quiet audience. But perhaps because he’s playing to an audience, Norrington’s L’enfance du Christ is Writ Large and taken at a dramatic tack. There’s a propulsive hustle from the opening bars as the nocturnal march becomes a frantic quickstep. Herod’s scene always tempts the operatic, but Mary and Joseph’s numbers, attractively if ringingly interpreted by Oelze and Maltman, might well be from some steamy Massenet thriller. The “Shepherd’s Farewell” skips along like a Wanderlied. One will have heard the Ishmaelites’ flute/harp trio more deftly done—many times. And the final chorus caps the piece with a solemnly oratorio-like massiveness, scanting the sublime aura of mystical reflection. Those things are in the score, and playing L’enfance du Christ in heavy quasi-operatic oils, rather than as a once upon a time pastel, is a matter of emphasis. In comparison with the suave dexterity of Philippe Herreweghe’s vivacious but refined way with it (Harmonia Mundi HMX 901632.33, Fanfare 26:4), one may find this bracingly—emphatic. Sound places soloists and orchestra up-front, with the chorus recessed a bit, all clearly detailed in spaciousness and delivered with gutsy oomph. If you’ve longed to hear its operatic potential mined, this L’enfance du Christ was made for you.

Adrian Corleonis, FANFARE

Berlioz's L'Enfance Du Christ is probably known primarily due to it's famous "Shepherd's Chorus" but it is a piece that once listeners discover it, they realize a true golden gem has been found. It is primarily a choral work which tells the story of what are called the Infancy Narratives in the New Testament. Scenes of the work are taken from both the scriptures and legends and include Herod visiting a soothsayer which predicts the birth of the Messiah, the Annunciation (Mary learning of the birth of Jesus), the birth itself, and the flight into Egypt. This recording by the Orchestre National du Lille under the direction of Jean-Claude Casadesus captures both the beauty and scope of the work.

Once upon a time, a country once renowned for its cultural life and relatively enlightened government policies on the arts and education held a general election. This election was held in a time of financial crisis; and in an atmosphere of artificially induced fear and resentment towards people from different countries propagated by people in nice, neat suits. The people in nice neat suits won, and set about rescuing their citizens from the financial crisis by getting rid of ‘elitist’ organisations in the arts. They stopped short of burning books in the streets, but only just ...

This release is part of the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Centre or MCO’s attempt to remain in existence. Imagine a government deciding overnight to do away with, say, all of the BBC orchestras and choirs. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how far those ripples would spread into British cultural life, but if there is one thing the anti-intellectual leadership of The Netherlands lack it’s imagination and forethought. The MCO website is in Dutch, but does have links to its orchestras whose sites have English versions, including the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in this Berlioz recording, a superb orchestra which has acclaimed releases on the Hyperion and BIS label – yes, that Shostakovich symphony cycle with Mark Wigglesworth. Let’s just do away with it all, OK everyone?

Well, erm, no – not OK, not by a long way. At the time of writing this situation is by no means resolved, and we are in no way out of the woods. The booklet for this CD contains an open letter from Bernard Haitink which uses terms such as “shameless outrage” and puts the nature of this very idea in a nutshell: “The moral condition of a society can generally be gauged by its flourishing cultural life ... Such a measure is therefore a bad omen for the state of things to come in The Netherlands.” I’m not going to stay on my soapbox much longer, but, given this subject is pretty much the entire raison d’être for this release I couldn’t let it go unsaid, and I’m pretty amazed at how few reviewers elsewhere mention all of this. It’s not as if this is a super deluxe release with all texts given in nine different languages, because it ain’t. Former director of the Concertgebouw and current chairman of the Holland Festival and more Martijn Sanders does also write in the booklet, outlining the reason for choosing this remarkable live performance of La Damnation de Faust, which had been one of the 1999 ‘Carte Blanche’ concert series for Bernard Haitink: “...a magnificent document with two top-level ensembles, four phenomenal vocalists and a conductor of world fame who started his career before the Radio Philharmonic.” This is therefore presented as a kind of Exhibit A. of what Dutch cultural life can and has achieved in recent years. It is also evidence of the lack of consultation and discussion which was engaged in before the decision was taken to discontinue the MCO. If musicians have no voice other than in presenting concrete examples of the success of their productions, then here you have it: Exhibit Berlioz.

So, is this recording worth having? The simple answer is an emphatic yes. Even without a desire to support our beleaguered colleagues, this is a stunningly vivid live recording of what must have been an electrifying evening at the Concertgebouw. French native speakers may turn their noses up at a few touchy corners of pronunciation, but all of the soloists are good and at their best they are brilliant. Thomas Quasthoff is a particularly fine Méphistophélès, and the chorus also seems to adapt its sound to create quite a convincingly French, at times almost nasal sound, and certainly with plenty of passionately expressive vibrato. The recording is on the cooler side, a touch more ‘blue-filter’ in the balance than one might expect from the Concertgebouw acoustic, but this trades off into a sound which has terrific immediacy and a fine sense of openness and refreshing clarity. The orchestra provides a superb sonic texture and more than just a backdrop for the singing, with very fine solos and sectional work throughout Berlioz’s remarkable scoring. Favourite moments such as the Marche hongroise in the first part are done with terrific verve and blazing brass, pushing all the right buttons and carrying us forward on waves of exhilaration.

Everyone seems to rave about Sir Colin Davis’s ‘LSO Live’ recording of this work, but while I agree it is very good and the French diction of the soloists is frequently a few degrees more convincing, I always find it rather hard to live with the stuffy Barbican acoustic and feel the music opens out more and creates a more physical reaction in this live version from Bernard Haitink. Giuseppe Sabbatini is more operatic and melodramatic than Vinson Cole in his more lyrical approach in the role of Faust, and which of these you prefer will be a matter of taste. Thomas Quasthoff is also less inclined towards dark suggestiveness than David Wilson-Johnson as Méphistophélès, and Charlotte Margiono’s soprano is more fruity in the lower octaves than Enkelejda Shkosa, whose vibrato is a touch tighter and more intense – all pretty much cases of swings and roundabouts, but if like me you prefer more expressive melodic lines as well as plenty of drama then Haitink is the man. Sir Colin also creates his own accompanying vocal role from the conductor’s rostrum, which becomes intrusive and irritating after a while. No, I’m very happy to have made the acquaintance of this performance from Bernard Haitink, and prefer its sappy vitality to the rather dry sounding LSO version.

Summing up, I was initially afraid I would have to defend this ‘non profit initiative’ release from hot competition, but in the end it’s been easy to welcome it as a top-level production in its own right, and one which need have no fear in standing alongside any of its rivals in the current catalogue. It doesn’t have texts or informative booklet notes, but that’s not the point. This release makes it easy to support a worthwhile cause by giving you a tremendous listening experience. Don’t allow the Dutch government to sweep an entire set of national and internationally valuable cultural institutions into the cold and dirty North Sea. You know what will happen: if they succeed it will only give other governments bad ideas ...

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

The principal champion pre-Colin Davis of Hector Berlioz's neglected 19th c. masterpiece Les Troyens was Rafael Kubel�k. This Milan 1960 recording - now back in the catalog - is a remarkable sound document. The sound is basic; there are cuts; and it's in Italian rather than the original French. But it also makes for electrifying listening. Kubel�k conducts with intensity and dignity. Featuring a cast that includes Mario Del Monaco, Giulietta Simionato and the under-represented on disc Nell Rankin, it's essential listening for anyone with an interest in Berlioz. - The Guardian, 2012.

It can come as quite a shock to a critic when, looking at the back of a CD he has been sent to review, he finds his own words trumpeted back at him. That was my experience when this release quotes my own review of October 2012 in respect of Slatkin’s Naxos recording of the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique: “quite simply one of the best on disc”. I shall accordingly take the opportunity occasionally to refer back to that review during the course of writing this one.

In the first place it is a real pleasure to find Slatkin and his Lyon players returning to the symphonies of Berlioz, for so long in the past neglected by French orchestras. In the second place it is also a pleasure to encounter again the playing of violist Lise Berthaud, whose performance in the Bruch Double Concerto I welcomed for the Seen and Heard pages of this site in June of this year. And it is also a pleasure to hear that Berthaud’s superb playing is integrated into the orchestral score without unnatural highlighting. Harold in Italy, despite its origins as a display piece for Paganini, is decidedly not a concerto – as Paganini himself recognised. It is rather a symphonic poem in four movements with the viola taking the part of a protagonist among equals. Many recordings with starry names, from Yehudi Menuhin onwards, have spotlighted the soloist, to the disadvantage of the music. Berthaud is never swamped here, but she is observed in a natural perspective which adds dramatic unity to the score.

I might take some issue with the strength of the violin body in places here. Berlioz generally asked for at least fourteen each of first and second violins — not that he generally managed to get them — and his orchestral balances were nicely judged with that sort of strength in mind. This is more than the usual symphonic strength carried by most orchestras. Whereas Wagner and Strauss with their elaborate string divisions made it impossible to perform their scores with fewer than the demanded numbers, Berlioz was less particular. It seems that a normal symphonic complement of twenty or so violins is employed here; that number is shown in the booklet photograph. For much of the time, and in the louder passages, the balance is eminently satisfactory; but there are places (for example, track 1, 5.51) where the quiet string figurative decorations are hardly audible. Also, at the beginning of the Pilgrim’s March (track 2) the pianissimo woodwind bell sounds are so noticeably louder than the ppp string melody that the tune of the march is somewhat obscured. Berlioz himself gives very specific instructions regarding this in the score, although they are not always free from obscurity of meaning; surely the intention is that the melody should sound louder than the accompanying bell, despite the contradictory dynamic markings. The Pilgrims themselves progress at quite a sprightly pace, but no faster than Berlioz’s metronome marking and indication of Allegretto at the head of the movement.

When reviewing the Symphonie fantastique, I did complain that Slatkin and his players tended to smooth the rough edges of the music away to some extent. In the less exuberant and more classically constructed Harold in Italy this is less of a problem, but there is one point, at the climaxes of the Orgy of the Brigands (track 4, 5.05 and 8.28), where one might welcome a little more sheer venom from the violins in their repeated quaver oscillations. Colin Davis among others separates the individual violin notes here with a real martellato attack, although Berlioz makes no such indication beyond the marking of sempre f. Here Slatkin, in conformity with the score, has the violins playing with more legato binding between the notes, but the result lacks the sense of sheer visceral excitement that one can find elsewhere.

As a filler, Slatkin enterprisingly presents us with the three orchestral pieces that Berlioz extracted from his opera Benvenuto Cellini following its disastrous Paris première in 1838, many years before Liszt’s triumphant vindication of the work in Weimar. All three have plenty of excitement, as well as playing which copes brilliantly with the tricky rhythmic cross-syncopations in the Roman Carnival Overture. Giovanni Radivo produces beautiful tone and poise in the Reverie and Caprice. It seems odd to conclude with Overture to the opera itself, but then Slatkin may not have intended the three items to be treated as an ‘operatic suite’.

The recording, as in the case of the previous Symphonie fantastique, is superb. Despite the fact that we are told that the performances were “recorded live” there is no sign of any audience presence, not even applause at the end of items. Applause would have been well deserved. The balance throughout is truthful, as I have indicated, and the offstage strings at the end of Harold (track 4, 10.29) have just the right sense of mysterious distance. Keith Anderson’s comprehensive notes are provided in English with French translation. I hope that Slatkin and his Lyon forces will go on to explore more of the Berlioz repertoire, and look forward to the results.

– Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International

“[Ehnes] is the protagonist in this all-Berlioz programme, but the disc is equally distinguished by the lucid, exhilarating, smoothly contoured playing of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under that experienced Berliozian Sir Andrew Davis.” - The Daily Telegraph (UK)

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The nine-time Juno-winning Canadian James Ehnes is centre stage in a new recording of orchestral works by Berlioz, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. This recording was made following an extraordinary concert in November 2014 with the same forces, in which James Ehnes played two instruments made by Stradivarius, respectively a viola in the solo part of Harold en Italie – ‘symphony with a principal viola part’, in Berlioz’s words – and a violin in the solo of Rêverie et Caprice, both of which works feature here.

Berlioz was never ashamed to recycle his music from one work to another, especially when the earlier work had been rejected by the public or by the composer himself. In 1834, Paganini asked Berlioz for a work in which he could display his prowess on a fine Stradivarius viola. Berlioz then composed the four-movement symphony Harold en Italie, incorporating passages from the Rob-Roy overture which he had recently rejected.

Similarly, Rêverie et Caprice was the form eventually given to an aria from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, unceremoniously booed in Paris in 1838. Berlioz transformed the aria into a piece with solo violin three years later. It is the only piece Berlioz ever wrote for solo violin. - Chandos

Digital CD 16Bit 44.1Khz and originally recorded in: 24Bit 96Khz.

With this surround-sound recording of Berlioz’s Requiem, Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra tackle the infinite and the immeasurable.

All the grandiose, striking beauty of the Requiem’s large-scale ceremonial is encapsulated by first-class vocal and orchestral forces, fully utilising the spatial possibilities of Grieghallen in Bergen. The matching of space and sonority was one of Berlioz’s lasting obsessions, one experience in St Paul’s Cathedral in London throwing Berlioz into a delirium of emotion from which he took days to recover. His Grande Messe des morts, notorious for its requirement of four brass bands in addition to a large orchestra and chorus, taken here from live concerts, has often been seen as one of the most emotionally powerful works of its kind.

Setting a solemn and austere, even ascetic text, the music is not that of an orthodox believer but of a visionary, inspired by the dramatic implications of death and judgement.

This performance, captured on February 14, 1994 in Dresden's Kreuzkirche, commemorates the February 13, 1945 bombing of Dresden. The interpretation is so compelling, and so effectively captured by the German radio engineers, that you almost wish these forces had found reason for a few more commemorative events! Nevertheless, Davis is almost always reliable in Berlioz, and the weight of the occasion seems to have inspired not just him but everyone involved to give of their very best.

The initial Requiem and Kyrie takes a little time to warm up, but Davis & Co. deliver a crushing account of the Dies Irae, with positively cataclysmic brass and timpani fusillades and a vast dynamic range. The various combined choirs sing magnificently, and more importantly have the lung-power necessary to balance the huge instrumental forces. Nor, despite the ample acoustic, is there so much reverberation that the more sensitive moments, such as the a cappella Quaerens me, get lost in an acoustic fog.

Indeed, after a terrifying Lacrymosa the performance generally becomes even more compelling. Tenor Keith Idaia-Purdy has a penetrating but somewhat nasal tone in the Sanctus, but the Agnus Dei must be one of the most moving on disc, solemn but never static, and bringing the work to a close with a feeling of cautionary repose that seems perfectly tailored to suit the occasion. I wouldn't rate this version higher than the two reference recordings, Bernstein and Munch, listed above, but it's certainly better than Davis' LSO studio recording for Philips. Requiem collectors (you know who you are) should certainly hear it. [9/5/2007]

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

BERLIOZ ENSEMBLE WROCLAW; MCCREESH (COND.) GRANDE MESSE DES MORTS

The present release contains Hector Berlioz's complete concert overtures, including the one written for his early opera Les francs-juges, superbly performed by the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg directed by the French conductor Sylvain Cambreling. French composer Hector Berlioz wrote a number of overtures, many of which remain concert staples. They include not only overtures intended to introduce operas, but also independent concert overtures. The album opens with one of the most popular overtures, Waverly, Op. 1. Composed in 1828, it was inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly novels. Also included are Le Carnaval romain, Op. 9, a standalone overture intended for concert performance made up of material from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, Le Corsaire, Op. 21, and others. This album is part of a new re-release series (Century Classics) consisting of SWR music bestsellers. The series is competitively priced, optically highly attractive and contains acclaimed SWR recordings mostly of the SWR orchestras and their chief conductors.

Apart from the operas, Berlioz wrote a large number of vocal works. Between 1827 and 1830, he attempted the coveted Prix de Rome on four occasions, winning at his final attempt.

Also available on Blu-ray

Hector Berlioz
BENVENUTO CELLINI

Benvenuto Cellini – Burkhard Fritz
Teresa – Maija Kovalevska
Fieramosca – Laurent Naouri
Giacomo Balducci – Brindley Sherratt
Pope Clemens VII – Mikhail Petrenko
Ascanio – Kate Aldrich
Francesco – Xavier Mas
Bernardino – Roberto Tagliavini
Pompeo – Adam Plachetka
Innkeeper – Sung-Keun Park

Vienna State Opera Chorus
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, conductor

Philipp Stölzl, stage director and stage designer
Kathi Maurer, costume design
Duane Schuler, lighting design
Mara Kurotschka, choreographer

Filmed at the Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, 5, 10 and 15 August 2007.

Picture format: NTSC 19:9
Sound format: Dolby Digital 2.0 / Dolby Surround 5.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French
Running time: 164 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

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BERLIOZ Benvenuto Cellini • Valery Gergiev, cond; Burkhard Fritz ( Cellini ); Maija Kovaleska ( Teresa ); Laurent Naouri ( Fieramosca ); Kate Aldrich ( Ascanio ); Brindley Sherratt ( Balducci ); Mikhail Petrenko ( Pope Clement VII ); Vienna State Op Ch; Vienna PO • NAXOS 2.110271 (DVD: 163:35) Live: Salzburg 8/5-10-15/2007


This is an eye-popping extravaganza in which stage business keeps pace with, and too often trumps, Berlioz’s most coruscatingly vibrant and scintillantly compelling score. Cellini appears in a helicopter at the rooftop porch of Balducci’s penthouse, framed against the New York skyline; robots help Teresa with her toilet (including shaving her armpits) as Maija Kovaleska delivers herself of her big aria with virtuosic aplomb; Ascanio, too, is a robot—Kate Aldrich deliciously does her “Tra-la-la” aria with head removed (at stage level); Pompeo is a pimp, and hookers are a significant portion of the Mardi Gras crowd; the wheedling Asian innkeeper brandishes an assault rifle; and so on. The animation of static moments—in terms of staging—is clever, entertaining, and often riveting. The Mardi Gras itself is a credibly incredible triumph of garish color, comic incident, choreographically turned hurlyburly, and drama. Even those who care little for Berlioz’s music will find themselves entranced by the spectacle, while those with some regard for the composer may be alternately delighted and appalled. Berlioz’s conception of the artist as a romantic hero is a major casualty. As Cellini, Burkhard Fritz is in heroic voice and magnificent swagger but portrays his man as a gangster; while, between Mardi Gras and his appearance at his atelier, the director has foisted upon him a gratuitous wound, allowing the camera to make much of his pained expressions and bloodied clothes. Why? Pompeo’s blustering aria, boasting his fencing prowess, has been transferred to Fieramosca, which makes no sense whatever as the latter is—and is played throughout to great comic effect by Laurent Naouri—a sneaking pantywaist. English subtitles render maîtres ciseleurs as “master engravers,” a literal translation that ignores Berlioz’s usage to mean master goldsmiths while making nonsense of the Dionysian hymn he lavished upon Cellini’s foundrymen. We never see the Perseus , the statue Cellini’s been commissioned to cast, instead, the mold he threatens to destroy as Pope Clement rebukes him is a picayune Winged Victory of Samothrace —another disturbing dissonance between Berlioz’s straightforward dramatic narrative and director Philipp Stölzl’s pointless, would-be-clever dinking. Within the often silly parameters just outlined, vocally and histrionically this production is beyond all praise. Valery Gergiev’s direction is surefire, though others—Sir Colin Davis, Sir Roger Norrington—have found deeper resonance through significant portions of the score, while the never less than virtuosic Vienna Philharmonic is massive where Berlioz is lean and sinewy. Nevertheless, one comes to the end stunned, thrilled, and viscerally moved. As the cast took richly deserved bows, I, alone in my hovel, stood and cheered! Naxos’s surround sound lets no detail of this teeming, overfull, overrich score escape, delivering all with overwhelming punch. Despite all caveats, highest recommendation.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

Through the eye of French director Laurent Pelly this expression of Berlioz's undying admiration for the Bard - his adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing as an opera comique - becomes ''an elegant treatise on love and music designed in shades of grey with 50's-era costumes'' (Sunday Express). Housed by designer Barbara de Limburg in a series of oversized boxes, it's ''terribly chic, terribly pretty'' (The Spectator). Soaring over the ''warmly graceful playing of the London Philharmonic'', Paul Appleby sings ''attractively'' as Benedict and Stephanie d'Oustrac ''makes a marvellously wiry and fiery Beatrice, singing with charm and acting with gusto'' (The Telegraph).

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REVIEW:

Antonello Manacorda is a natural-sounding guide to the stage events shown here. His cast sound and work together naturally. Stéphanie D’Oustrac (an expressive face to enjoy in close-up) and Paul Appleby (carefully less histrionic in duet) spar well. The Ursule of Katarina Bradic´ is quite a find, more comfortable with notes and character than Sophie Karthäuser’s Héro, accurate but less ethereal than ideal. The men do well, although Lionel Lhote’s effortful Somarone the music-master, falling everywhere on a sliding table in Act 2, will not be to everyone’s comic taste—but that may be Berlioz’s fault in falling (for once) for the cliché that audiences have always seemed to find onstage musical jokes especially hysterical.

Despite some reservations, this only official DVD to date of such an important opera, well recorded and filmed in a slick modern production, deserves a place in the catalogue and on your shelves.

– Gramophone

Through the eye of French director Laurent Pelly this expression of Berlioz's undying admiration for the Bard - his adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing as an opera comique - becomes ''an elegant treatise on love and music designed in shades of grey with 50's-era costumes'' (Sunday Express). Housed by designer Barbara de Limburg in a series of oversized boxes, it's ''terribly chic, terribly pretty'' (The Spectator). Soaring over the ''warmly graceful playing of the London Philharmonic'', Paul Appleby sings ''attractively'' as Benedict and Stephanie d'Oustrac ''makes a marvellously wiry and fiery Beatrice, singing with charm and acting with gusto'' (The Telegraph).

During his thirteen years as chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR Sir Roger Norrington conducted and recorded an important part of Berlioz's core repertoire. The present boxed set brings together on seven CDs the Requiem, the opera Benvenuto Cellini (concert performance), the oratorio L'Enfance du Christ, the overture Les Francs-juges and of course the Symphonie fantastique.

Norrington's style has caused a stir internationally with what has come to be termed ‘The Stuttgart Sound’: a synthesis of historically-informed performance practice with the technical capabilities of a modern orchestra. Whether in Mozart, Haydn, Bruckner, or Berlioz, Norrington seeks to capture the performance experience of the time, adjusting the orchestra’s size and seating plan to create an authentic sound without vibrato.

Hector Berlioz had to surmount a variety of challenges before he was able to pursue his musical vocation. His father, a respected physician in the provincial South of France, was not readily willing to come to terms with his son's intention to quit his medical studies and turn instead to music. He therefore made all further financial support subject to Hector's climbing up the musical ladder at lightning speed. Alas, it didn't work so easily. Berlioz's road to success was tedious and marked by adversity and struggle, his personal life tumultuous. The uniqueness and originality of his musical style are no longer disputed, but this insight came at the end of a decades-long process.