Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ [CD]

This is not really the `Childhood of Christ' but the infancy of Christ. It lasts an hour and a half, it is set to an elaborate musical score requiring chorus, orchestra and half a dozen soloists, but it is not different in kind, only in scale, from the Nativity plays that many a school puts on at Christmas. The story begins with Herod's ordering of the massacre of the innocents, and that is followed by a brief scene of the Holy Family round the crib featuring angels, shepherds and shepherdesses, lambs and, sadly, a poor donkey that dies in the course of the flight into Egypt, where the narrative leaves off. I suppose the libretto is by Berlioz himself, although the liner note does not seem to say. He liked to write his own libretti, and it would certainly have been characteristic of him to endow the Holy Infant with that unusual Levantine attribute `blonde chevelure'.

This recording is in original digital sound dating from 1996. I would call the sound quality very good but not spectacularly good, and that is fine by me as this is not one of the Berlioz scores that call for spectacular sound. His orchestration is nearly always wonderful, and it is wonderful here, but the effects are delicate rather than grandiose, and the National Orchestra of Lille has the measure of them under the sympathetic baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus. They are all new to me, and so are the soloists and chorus. However such few reviews as I found suggested that it was worth taking a chance and obtaining this performance, and that, together with the confidence I have in Naxos generally, made up my mind for me and I do not regret it. I reflect that if I followed the safe consensus in all my choices I would end up with a collection consisting largely of Karajan, which is not how I would wish things to be, meaning no disrespect to that great musician.

The large group of vocal soloists do very well by and large, and the only reservation of any significance that I have is that Antoine Garcin as the Father of the Ishmaelite Family is not quite secure in his intonation here and there. For newcomers, perhaps I should say a little about the actual score. Berlioz seems to me to make no attempt to give Mary and Joseph `sacred-sounding' music, the sort of thing that Elgar for one turns out in The Apostles. They are really just a normal lyric soprano and baritone, particularly when they sing in duets. However one thing is greatly to my liking, and it is that where differentiation is called for the composer knows how to do it. In this work the parts of Joseph and of the Ishmaelite paterfamilias are both written in the bass clef, but their music is not alike in the least, and the two singers could not take each other's roles interchangeably. The chorus have a very varied set of tasks, having to be gloomy soothsayers or soothsingers, shepherds and shepherdesses, surly and unwelcoming Egyptians, remote and ethereal angels, and finally taking a non-character role in the solemn closing number. All this they seem to me to handle well, and honourable mention needs to be made also of the orchestral players, particularly the solo artists in the trio for two flutes and a harp. As usual with Berlioz, there are numerous purely instrumental interludes that are there for their own sake rather than because the narrative has any special need for them. However that is just the way he likes to do things, and when the instrumental writing is of the calibre of Berlioz's I for one would not complain if there were twice as many such intermezzi.

The total playing time is just a little over 90 minutes, which is 10 minutes more than a single cd can manage. I make no complaint of short measure at Naxos's price, and in fact I often prefer no filler to an unsuitable or incongruous filler. The liner note by Mathieu Ferey is quite a good one, given in full with English and German versions, the text is in French and English, and the summarised resumes of the performers are given in English only.

Is this work an `oratorio' by any chance? Surely not. Surely never. Berlioz simply calls it a Sacred Trilogy, and I see no need whatsoever to docket it in some standard category. In any case the best definition of an oratorio that I can think of is the simple ostensive definition `like what Handel did'. Berlioz did not admire Handel, he would not have welcomed such an association, that would be sufficient reason for me not to attempt it, and I would not have attempted it in the first place because it seems to me untrue and misleading. If ever a composer was a one-off, Berlioz was that. However when he uniquely writes a musical Nativity play for our benefit the uniqueness is in no more than the strange fact that no other major composer seems to have thought of doing the same.

This work is full of magnificent surprises. The soprano is sublime. One of Berlioz' greatest works, well recorded and performed here. This disc won an CHOC award from the French publication Le Monde De La Musique, well deserved award.