Hector Berlioz Sir Colin Davis Giuseppe Sabbatini - Berlioz La damnation de Faust Davis (35 tracks) +Album Reviews

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Hector Berlioz, Sir Colin Davis, Giuseppe Sabbatini
Berlioz: La damnation de Faust / Davis
Genre: Classical

Track Listings (18) - Disc #1
1. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 1
2. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 1
3. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 1
4. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
5. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
6. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
7. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
8. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
9. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
10. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
11. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
12. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
13. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
14. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
15. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
16. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
17. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
18. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 2
Track Listings (17) - Disc #2
1. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
2. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
3. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
4. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
5. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
6. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
7. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
8. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
9. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
10. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 3
11. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
12. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
13. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
14. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
15. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
16. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4
17. La Damnation de Faust, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, chorus and orchestra, ('l?gende dramatique') H. 111 (Op. 24): Part 4

CD Details

All Artists: Hector Berlioz, Sir Colin Davis, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Enkelejda Shkosa, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, David Wilson-Johnson, Michele Pertusi
Title: Berlioz: La damnation de Faust / Davis
Members Wishing: 1
Total Copies: 0
Label: Empire Music Group
Release Date: 9/25/2001
Genre: Classical
Style: Opera & Classical Vocal
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPC: 793515660820

CD Reviews

A wonderful performance

Andrew | 03/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a bit mystified by the criticism in some of the reviews below of Davis for being uninvolved in this performance. I just don't hear any lack at all - to me it's by far the most successful instalment in his new Berlioz cycle, and avoids the crassness that can so often come into Berlioz performances generally. It's beautiful Berlioz playing, in a literal sense - full of beauty, yet with immense power and precision. This doesn't happen by accident.

I don't share other's enthusiasm for Chung's recording, which contains orchestral playing that is energetic but sloppy, in harsh sound. Okay, Chung has Terfel, but Davis' cast is perfectly fine at worst and superb at best, and in any event let's be blunt here - as a vocal writer, Berlioz was a great orchestral composer. The important stuff in Berlioz happens in the orchestra, and Davis and the LSO sweep all before them in this recording."

The latest Davis lacks fire and good-enough singing

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 10/05/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In this live performance from London one can sitll hear the Colin Davis who is to the manner born with Berlioz, but he's at half power. The orchestra plays well, the lighter music is particularly delicate and buoyant. But Davis doesn't sound that involved, and the special excitement of a great Faust doesn't catch hold. His soloists are unformly bland and inferior to all the best singers on other versions, including his own.

The earlier Davis reading on Philips with the same LSO from 1973 (not 1987 as one reviewer states) is quite good, but I would rank it behind two excellent French performances under Igor Markevitch and Myung-Wha Chung, both on DG, the first now remastered from its former rather shrill sonics. The Frenchness of this work adds a zesty elan missing from most readings, although time has tested and proved those from Beecham, Munch and Solti, among others. In any event, the competition leaves this tired Damnation rather far in the lurch."

Disappointing - apart from Sabbatini

Ralph Moore | Bishop's Stortford, UK | 02/01/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Despite several rave reviews, I am with the Santa Fe listener on this one: it is a lacklustre affair in recessed sound, lacking the drive and fire both Pretre and Solti (especially, in his fabulous 1981 set) bring to this mercurial piece. Indeed, Davis' own earlier version is far preferable. The choir is ragged and quite often strained, Skhosa's odd vibrato makes her sound permanently flat and her French is poor, Davis' tempi are limp - absurdly so at the start of the "D'amour l'ardente flamme" - and everyone, apart from Sabbatini, is ordinary. Just compare Skhosa's run-through of Marguerite compared with Janet Baker's deeply felt and sublimely sung rendition in the old (1969) version, or Pertusi's perfectly adequate assumption of Méphistophélès compared with Van Dam's spine-chilling suavity on the Solti. Sabbatini is the honourable exception; his French is good and he brings real passion - including a ringing C sharp - to his Faust, bringing him into the same league as Gedda and Keith Lewis on the Inbal set. (Riegel is the comparative weakness on the Solti, but he is more than adequate.) Turning up the volume to compensate for the low recorded dynamic only serves to emphasise the inadequacies of this performance.

I am afraid that I find many of these Davis/LSO live peformances to be over-rated and disappointing; I include the Falstaff (also with Pertusi) and the Berlioz "Romeo et Juliette". I have bought them after reading rave reviews and as they are so cheap, played them and given them away. I suggest you turn to the Solti, Markevitch or the Pretre (see my reviews for all three) if you want to hear this piece done properly; the newer Chung sports the advantages of Terfel as the demon and Keith Lewis' Faust, but the latter is no longer as sweet and sappy as he was for Inbal and the rest of the cast, including Von Otter's bland, characterless Marguerite and Victor Van Halem's past-it Brander, cannot measure up."