Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the truly great Berlioz recordings, 19 Jul 2003
A great performance - passionate, tender, volatile and fabulously wild when needed. Whilst it might be stating the obvious given the performers, this performance is truly FRENCH (Markevitch was Russian, but he was also a French music specialist).This makes a huge difference - the orchestral colour and vocal timbre are quite different - adding an extra dimension to make most other performances sound flat and dull. The brashness of the recorded sound really doesn't detract. The big moments such as the famous Hungarian March sound quite overwhelming, and the soloists with the slight exception of Rubio are superb. Like many classic recordings of the 50s and 60s, this has an intensity which 99% of modern recordings just don't seem to have - if you bought the overhyped LSO Live recording and wondered what all the fuss was about, sell it and spend the extra few quid on this one!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wholly authentic, Gallic account, 25 April 2009
I am grateful to the Santa Fe listener for steering me towards this set. I still like very much Solti's version with the Chicago forces but that is indeed very "American" sounding compared to the utter authenticity of this French performance. Of course, Markevitch was Russian but he was brought up in Paris, spoke French and was completely immersed in the Gallic musical idiom, as other of his recordings prove. Even the Berlin Phil seem to take on a pithier, more pungent sound than that which they produced for Karajan and it is a delight to hear French so cleanly articulated by the chorus and soloists. The Choeur Elisabeth Brasseur - whom I have heard elsewhere only in the famous Fournet "Pearl Fishers" - are wonderfuly unbuttoned: riotous and rambunctious in the tavern scene, the only choir I know who actually sound inebriated, bawling the fugal "Amen" lustily but asssuming the correct martial fervour and precision for the Soldiers' Chorus. I was swept away by this recording from the very first notes: Markevitch has such an unerring instinct for the correct pulse, creating tenderness and élan in equal measure. The stereo sound is excellent for a recording fifty years old; a little treble-biased, yet the double bass pizzicati in the Racoczy March, played with swaggering brilliance, emerge cleanly. Orchestral detail of this kind frequently emerges; the "Ride to the Abyss" is a supercharged experience that is never frenetic but always tension-packed. My only reservations concern the soloists, none of whom is famous today but their style is completely in harmony with Markevitch's vision. In particular, Richard Verreau - who seems to have recorded nothing else - is perfect as Faust, his reedy sound, plangent top and sensitive phrasing quite matching any other tenor on record, including Gedda and Keith Lewis. I prefer a more saturnine demon with more bass in the voice such as José Van Dam, but the baritone Michel Roux phrases and characterises tellingly and he has no trouble with the tessitura of the rôle. Consuelo Rubio is perhaps the least impressive of the three; her timbre is similar to that of her celebrated compatriot Victoria de los Angeles, whereas she is all but forgotten. Hers is a warm, touching assumption even if she is a little anonymous and occasionally stretched.
This is now available, remastered, on DG Originals, but it is expensive so I suggest that you look for a Marketplace copy. There is a wonderful bonus in the 1955 mono "Harold in Italy". The sound is slightly constricted and papery but principal violist Heinz Kirchner plays in immaculate, Romantic style under Markevitch's expert direction.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly classic performance, 29 Nov 2008
I have to admit to being one of those who praised the LSO live performance, but that was before this one became available. It's not entirely perfect but this has so many marvels in compensation that it has to sit at the top of the list. The score has two significant and unwelcome cuts (one in the Dance of the Sylphs), probably made to fit it onto the original LPs. These are marginal shocks if you are familiar with the full score but otherwise do not detract from the considerable merits of the performance. Markevitch is one of the great unsung heroes of the early LP era. He has a remarkable composer's ear for what makes a good performance and has drilled his Lamoreux Orchestra to perfection. I have to say that I find Consuelo Rubio a little dull but the other soloists completely outclass the competition (including a brilliant Brander in the tavern scene). In particular, the idiomatic French of Verreau (Faust) and Roux (Mephistopheles) are a revelation. I have been able to find out almost nothing about Verreau and I am unaware of any other recordings made by him. He seems to have been French Canadian and sings Faust with a youthful, heroic tone that is absolutely stunning and caught to perfection by a bright, potent DG recording. Not only does Verreau produce ringing top Cs in the Love duet but he shapes and characterises "Nature Immense" better than any tenor I have ever heard (and I include Gedda here) and he sounds SO French. The ride to the abyss is vivid and terrifying. The Lamoreux Chorus are also in a different league from any other. The males are thoroughly masculine as soldiers, raucous and believably inebriate as students, blood-curdling as Demons. The females produce radiant and touching singing in the angelic finale. Whatever other recording you may have, you ought to hear this one.
The new release adds a fine, characterful "Harold in Italie" with an accomplished soloist and the Berlin Philharmonic sounding curiously different from their ultra-smooth selves under Karajan.
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