Berlioz Symphonies
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Hector Berlioz
Label: Ovation
Magazine Review Date: 8/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 135
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 425 053-2DM2

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Harold en Italie |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
Cleveland Orchestra Hector Berlioz, Composer Lorin Maazel, Conductor Robert Vernon, Viola |
Composer or Director: Hector Berlioz
Label: Ovation
Magazine Review Date: 8/1993
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 131
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 425 056-2DM2

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(9) Mélodies, 'Irlande', Movement: Chant guerrier (ten, 3 male vv and pf) |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir David Thomas, Bass Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
Prière du matin |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
(Le) Temple Universel |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Harmonium Roger Norrington, Conductor |
(9) Mélodies, 'Irlande', Movement: Chant sacré (ten, 6vv and pf/orch) |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor Ryland Davies, Tenor |
(Le) Ballet des ombres |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
(La) Menace des Francs |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
Veni creator |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Gillian Hull, Contralto (Female alto) Hazel Holt, Soprano Hector Berlioz, Composer Roger Norrington, Conductor Sarah Walker, Mezzo soprano |
Hymne à la France |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
Tantum ergo |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Gillian Hull, Contralto (Female alto) Hazel Holt, Soprano Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Harmonium Roger Norrington, Conductor Sarah Walker, Mezzo soprano |
(Le) Chant des Bretons |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor |
(9) Mélodies, 'Irlande', Movement: Chanson à boire (ten, 4 male vv and pf) |
Hector Berlioz, Composer
(Heinrich) Schütz Choir Hector Berlioz, Composer Peter Smith, Piano Roger Norrington, Conductor Ryland Davies, Tenor |
Author: Lionel Salter
In Maazel's performance of that vast programmatic symphony, that movement fails to sparkle as it should, though Michel Senechal gives point to the previous Mab scherzetto. His fellow-soloists are less convincing: Christa Ludwig makes rather heavy going of her couplets, and Nicolai Ghiaurov, fine as is his voice, adopts too operatic a style for Friar Laurence (and his French is not good). The best sections here are the Capulets' Ball, which has plenty of vigour (though the oboe solo preceding it sounds thin), and the scene of Juliet's death; but overall Maazel's reading has less sense of drama than Davis's (Philips) or Dutoit's (Decca).
Harold in Italy has the advantage of an excellent viola soloist in Robert Vernon, who provides an eloquent depiction of Byron's melancholy hero; and the orchestral playing is efficient, even if it might have had crisper bite in the Brigands' Orgy movement. The faults of balance which JW mentioned in the LP version seem to have been corrected; and altogether this is a very acceptable performance of this curious work which—as Paganini complained—makes increasingly less use of the solo instrument as it proceeds. Berlioz's Requiem should, like the fat boy in The Pickwick Papers, aim to make our flesh creep. It doesn't really succeed in that here: the orchestra has absorbed the once famous bizarre effects so well that they have lost their impact and sound everyday, and Maazel's approach in general seems low-voltage. This is all very well in the Offertory and Sanctus (with Kenneth Riegel showing no signs of strain in the high tessitura), but elsewhere the chorus, frankly, lets things down: it lacks firmness in ''Quaerens me'', and in several places its intonation is not up to the standard we have come to expect today. By the side of Davis (Philips) or Bernstein (Sony Classical) this is no competitor.'
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