This is the first new record of Harold to appear for some years. Now that Bernstein's later version with Donald McInnes and the French National Orchestra (HMV ASD3389, 11/77) and Maazel's earlier version with Robert Vernon and the Cleveland Orchestra (Decca SXL6873, 9/78) have been deleted, there is no recently recorded account of Berlioz's masterpiece on LP. Of course, Koussevitzky's pioneering 1944 recording with William Primrose and the Boston Symphony (reissued as RCA VIC1222, 11/66—nla) set standards that have rarely been approached. That was a performance of real vision whose intensity and power swept everything before it. Bernstein's earlier CBS version from the 1960s was undoubtedely impressive and of the three listed above would be my first choice, even if as a recording it does not have the transparency and detail of the Menuhin/Davis account on HMV.
Let me say straight away that this newcomer from Wolfram Christ and the BPO under Maazel is very fine indeed. The structure is well held together and there is a finely paced sense of forward movement in all four movements and no lack of poetic feeling. Maazel secures a finely judged internal balance, there is some imaginative phrasing and he invariably finds the tempo giusto. Indeed, when I put this new record alongside the 1978 Cleveland version, which has much to recommend it, I was struck by the consistency of his view: neither the tempos nor the basic conception differs in any major respect. Wolfram Christ is an eloquent and dignified protagonist. (He is, incidentally, the first violist of the BPO and will be familiar to collectors of DG's Brahms Edition: he took part in the piano quartets with tamas Vasary—2740 277, 5/83). It goes without saying that the orchestral playing is of the highest order too, though the sound the Berliners make is different from that they produce for Karajan. Yet there is no want of magic in the ''March of the pilgrims'' where the delicacy of Berlioz's textures is fully realized. In the ''Orgy of the brigands'', too, there is plenty of excitement, though Maazel does not always have the intensity of Koussevitzky or Bernstein here. IN the former, for example at fig. 48, the atmosphere is electrifying: the jaws of hell seem to open up revealing a vision reminiscent of Hieronimus Bosch (both conductors make a slight ritartando just a bar or so earlier to splendid dramatic effect). These terrors elude Maazel and the Berliners who are at lower voltage here. The recording is well balanced with the wind laid well back and good perspective between the various orchestral sections. As a recording the Cleveland version on Decca has perhaps the more sonorous lower string sound and more internal detail, but the DGcomes from a (presumably well-attended) concert, though the audience is remarkably silent, and the sound is inevitably drier. Listening to this LP in isolation one scarcely notices this, for the recording is very good indeed, and only emerges when moving from one recording to another.
Maazel's new DG offers us a fill-up in the form of the overture, Le carnaval romain, which is one of the most exciting performances I have heard for many years. If I may be self-indulgent for a moment, I was reminded of the excitement generated by the very first record of this overture I possessed and with which I tormented various neighbours in my student years (Erich Kleiber's Berlin State Opera account on Decca-Polydor CA8197, 3/35). Here we have the same sense of exhilaration, momentum and infectious sparkle, and the DG recording is marvellously clean and vivid.
Incidentally, readers preferring the cassette format can be assured that, judging from the sampling I did, the difference between it and the LP is minimal. Were I buying an LP or a music cassette, I would be torn between this and the Bernstein, though I must acknowledge the much greater superiority of the DG sound. However, if you have the earlier Maazel or the 1977 Bernstein, there is no compelling reason to make the change.
It is different for CD collectors as the Gramophone Compact Disc Guide and Catalogue shows no rival listing. The usual advantages of the new medium over the old are to be noted and CD collectors have no occasion to hesitate: Maazel does justice to this marvellous symphony.'