Review: Warner's Berlioz Complete Works
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ย. 2020
- This is the only collection of Berlioz's complete works available, so beggars can't be choosers. Fortunately, the folks who put this 27-CD cube together have made some very smart choices, and the result it thoroughly recommendable. Get it while you can.
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It's so complete, it even has the first three movements of Symphonie Fantastique!
The breadcrumbs "Sardanapale" is nothing less than the cantata that allowed him to finally win the Prix de Rome in 1830 after 4 attempts! Strangely, this cantata is the least known of the 4, (ok it's certainly not the best one either) and the score is incomplete. As far as I know, there is no other recording than the one by Jean-Claude Casadesus and the Orchestre National de Lille. Your detailed knowledge about Berlioz, his life and his compositions is impressive!... And Berlioz is probably only a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of all your musical knowledge. Hats off to you! Bravo and thank you for all the interesting videos and articles where you share with heart and frankness your relevant point of view.
Thank you so much for mentioning the Cluytens version of L'Enfance du Christ! I was totally unaware of that one, and it's just fantastic!
As always, I enjoyed this. Sincerest thanks, Mr. Hurwitz, for expanding my shopping list.
For any who would like to augment their "complete" Berlioz with early song settings (all with guitar), I recommend:
Jacques, D., M. Simard-Galdès, and A. Figueroa. 2019. Romances pour Voix et Guitare: Arrangements Hector Berlioz. ATMA Classique, ACD2 2800.
It's billed (as one might expect) as the "first complete recording" ("premier enrigestrement intégral"), only regarding the 25 songs at hand, of course.
Actually, I find Berlioz to be a wonderful fugue writer - he learned this métier from Reicha, and as you yourself pointed out in your talk on Reicha, David, he was a real quirky fugue guy. Berlioz took things even further, it seems - but, in my mind, just for the better. Think of the Lacrimosa in the Requiem, only to be outdone by the next movement, the Offertorium, where the orchestra is fuguing while the chorus sort of mumbles in awe and apprehension. And even the much shorter Hosanna fugues are highly enjoyable. Finally, there's the shattering double-fugue Châtiment Effroyable from Les Troyens - what a daring and original concept to insert such a monumental contrapuntal tour-de-force into a grand opera! So - viva Berlioz the fugue maverick!
I'll buy that...
I quite agree, Ido.
1. I was at Westminster Cathedral when they performed and recorded the Messe Solennelle. Live, the sound seemed a little lost in the space but it's fine in the recording. Who was also in attendance was that noted Berliozian Sir Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats
2. The fugue in the "Lacrimosa" from the Big Death Mess (jk) is superb. He could write 'em when he wanted to
Robert Layton passed away just this last week. He was a writer, along with Edward Greenfield and (editor) Ivan March for the “Penguin Guide to Compact Discs." I know you must be familiar with these men and their work, and possibly have met one or more of them. Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and somewhat into the 2000s, for those looking for reviews and ratings of classical CDs, the Penguin Guide was an indispensable reference book. Now, for me, and I assume many others, Dave Hurwitz admirably fulfills that role. Note to Dave: Have you spoke of these gentlemen and the Penguin Guide in any of your videos? If not, now that they’re gone, all passing in only the last five years, perhaps you can do a brief tribute?
I knew Robert well, and met the others.
Superb, i was waiting for one o this. And the epigones of Berlioz such as Felicien David are not bad at all.
Thank you for a great, critical run through of this box...I was in doubt whether I actually needed it, as I already own quite a few of the individual items? I am no more! 😛
Maybe Warner is saving the Beecham Berlioz stuff for their Beecham complete box-set, that has been long due? Did you hear this Warner: THE BEECHAM COMPLETE BOX!!!!
As much as I like and love my Barbirolli box, the Beecham is mandatory and indispensable!
They missed the occassion of his 150 years anniversary last year (2019), but could next year (2021) make appropriate amends by commemorating the 60th year of his passing!
Just wondered what you thought of the included fragments from the opera that never was, "La Nonne Sanglante"... I almost thought they would be irrelevant bits for completists' pleasure, but I actually liked them very much. The aria and duo "Avant minuit les portes sont ouvertes" actually struck me so right I want to go listen to it now as I write! Maybe it helps that I am a pretty big fan of Veronique Gens in the French Romantic fare. :) But, this is recognizably the Berlioz that wrote so well for voices, and thus - personally - a find.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Berlioz was one of those composers whose voice was so distinctive that he almost always sounds like "himself," but I confess that the music didn't make such a strong impression on me. I'll listen again and see. Thanks for mentioning this.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you for the response!
Well this is unfinished, so no way to know where it was going and how the pieces would've fit in the final picture - if Berlioz even had it fully in his own mind. So, we can only take the 30 minutes-plus that are available at face value. And it will not rival the great works, maybe not even the youthful Prix de Rome stuff - but, in the right mood, with information on the libretto handy, there was enough excitement, and dare I say, suspense.
I suppose the reason Berlioz hated fugues was because he had to compose so many of them for the Prix de Rome competitons, and you can guess what that meant
One serious ommision: ‘Les Francs Juges’ Berlioz’ first opera: at least a half-hour’s worth of fragments survive. The fragments were put into performable condition and broadcast by the BBC in 1970, but that recording remains in the BBC vault (write your Member of Parliament). The overture was published during Berlioz’ lifetime, and is in the Warner box.
Then it is not an omission, and it is not serious. "Complete Works" doesn't have to mean every scrawl and dribble which is not complete. I don't accept that.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I'd have thought Les Francs Juges was a pretty big deal, but I'll never know for sure until I hear it. In the meantime, an awful lot of scrawls and dribbles made it into the box.
@@johnfowler7660 Yes, but my point is that you characterized this as a "serious" omission, which as you now admit you can't know until you've heard it. Scrawls and dribbles are a bonus. It's nice to have them, but hardly necessary.
Texts and translations??
@@randywolfgang4943 No texts or translations.
Berlioz a guitarist ! Incroyable !
His first instrument! If you play, see:
Amoric, M., editor. 1985. Hector Berlioz: 36 Pièces Originales pour Guitare. Editions Musicales Transatliques.
@@eugenebraig413 I guess that was not included in the "complete" set.
I doubt anybody has recorded those pieces. Definitely studenty in the extreme and I suspect as likely copied by Berlioz for practice as actually written by him. This stuff is not concert-calibre music.
On the topic of Berlioz on Warner, have you already reviewed (in this channel) a box of Bernstein conducting the Orchestre National de France (I think the title was "An American in Paris") for that label?
I can't find it anywhere on TH-cam.
No, it predated me.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thank you for actually doing it! It made me want the box even more!
Dave did you hear the Solti Chicago Damnation at Carnegie. Up there for the best concert I ever heard
I saw Solti do it with the CSO at the Proms and it was one of the great concerts
Regarding Benvenuto, Cellini, Nelson did a great job, and he had a great cast. But for me, the early Colin Davis version with Gedda still takes the cake, with incredibly lush, brilliant, gutsy, sensitive, poetic, exuberant direction, and a perfect cast. I mean, Nicolai Gedda, gosh... To me, he was the definitive Berlioz tenor, and certainly the definitive Cellini. Also, the opéra-comique format with spoken dialogues is actually better suited to the work, as it was Berlioz' original design. All the recitatives he was forced to write in order to get the opera on stage tend to create timing issues, making the play lengthy and heavier than it was supposed to be. Only problem with it is that singers are often really bad with spoken dialogue, and it was certainly the case in this Davis version too. For a recording, it's better to replace them with actors who have similar voices, which is waht Nelson did for Béatrice et Bénédict. But I think opera singers are better trained for speak-acting now; the Grande-Duchess de Gerolstein by Minkowski,with Felicity Lott (visible on TH-cam), tends to prove the point.
One question Dave. Putting aside the fact it is not complete like this Warner Berlioz edition, but what about the Decca box with Colin Davis recordings of Berlioz works?
If you are a ClassicsToday.com Insider subscriber, you can read my review, with sound clips, here: www.classicstoday.com/review/another-colin-davis-big-box-berlioz/?search=1
@@DavesClassicalGuide thanks!
That version of the Symphonie Funèbre et triomphale was originally released on Erato.
Right!
Dave, there was one on Urania, same?
I wish the John Nelson recording of the Requiem had arrived in time for this box. I prefer it to Fremaux's.
Ah no! It's awful.
@@DavesClassicalGuide That's a surprise (as you normally seem to admire his Berlioz). It would be great if you could talk about what exactly you disliked about his Requiem in a Classicstoday review some day.
@@JaneSmith_ Perhaps if I get to it, but the bottom line is that the sonics are just horrible--one of those boomy, mushy cathedral jobs that obscures way too much detail. I had high hopes for this one, and was terribly disappointed.
@@JaneSmith_ Perhaps if I get to it, but the bottom line is that the sonics are just horrible--one of those boomy, mushy cathedral jobs that obscures way too much detail. I had high hopes for t
Much as i love Adrian Boult and all yep it's a fair cop. You wouldn't do the bloke the disservice of exposing him on the first disk of a Berlioz set. Not his bag man. Most of the rest sounds a good selection, though i agree regarding the Cluytens.
As always, Dave, thanks for guiding us through the byways of a composer's output. I had no idea Berlioz had composed so much, in such diverse forms, and for such diverse media. Organ music, no less! I bet it's far more interesting, fugues included, than that of César Franck (one of the few composers I actively detest). Berlipz, on the other hand, was never less than imaginative and, more often than not, engaging. I'll probably give this set a pass, though, since I already own the Munch/RCA set, the Davis set of operas and a great many individual recordings. A splendid review! As with the commentator below, I note with sadness the passing of Robert Layton, who, together with his Penguin Guide collaborators, provided us with so many diverting hours of entertaining reading.
Overall, this seems like a very fine compilation. As a dedicated Berlioz enthusiast, I’ll probably pick this up. Many of Berlioz’s deep cuts are little known but just as good as some of his more famous work. Good on Warner for putting it together. Even if I buy this, I’ll skip the Norrington. Sir Adrian seems like an odd fit for the Overtures, but that at least I’m willing to give a shot.