Search - Hector Berlioz, Michel Plasson, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse :: Berlioz - La Révolution Grecque (Grandes Oeuvres Chorales)

Excellent collection of enjoyable rarities

Wayne A. | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 08/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before I get verbose here I'll start with this: the superb performance of the cantata "The Greek Revolution" in this set alone is worth the price of the entire set. This is very early Berlioz but it contains some astonishing things, including a big ending "The Summit of Olympus"--a classic snowballing "call-to-arms" that would make anyone want to go out and battle the Turk--that consistently avoids the trite and obvious and contains ideas about generating excitement a modern rut-ridden choral composer like Philip Glass should pay close attention to. Fornet's recording of this on Denon is also nice and brings out the detail better, and is very powerful, but ultimately isn't as viscerally rousing. Savvy conductors know that even youthful Berlioz contains great stuff.



Anyway:



It's a bit sad that Berlioz is known to many listeners only through a handful of works like the Symphonie Fantastique (his most famous, yet an early work), maybe the Requiem and Harold in Italy, and a few other items (the short list seems to vary from person to person but it's always short). Sad, because unlike some other composers who are one or two trick ponys, Berlioz was a continuously strong and imaginative composer, in fact he was a great composer, up there with the best of them, who let loose with a long string of masterpieces that still need attention--like his opera Benvenuto Cellini and twenty other things. The man, even when trying to write boring music, was incapable of writing boring music. Then there's his incredible writing: his autobiography, his criticisms, his satires. He's not only one of my very favorite composers but one of my very favorite writers too. There's no other composer I can say that about.



So what's up with him, and why should you pay attention to this pricey collection of unknowns? Jacques Barzun, another favorite writer and an authority on Berlioz, thinks the Frenchman was so advanced in his ideas that he's been thoroughly misunderstood and grotesquely underappreciated up until fairly recently. Even Donald Francis Tovey, an insightful musical commentator (and another favorite writer--his books are highly recommended) of over 100 years ago talks of Berlioz as if, at times, he didn't known exactly what he was doing. There's an awful comment by him about how Berlioz allegedly knew how to start and end a piece but got a bit lost in between. How untrue. Barzun, on the other hand, mentions an incident where some critic complains about a series of wrong (meaning incompetently judged and not conforming to theory of that time) chords used in Harold in Italy and the response by a sharp conductor was "So tell me then why they sound so right?" (Someone later did a proper modern analysis and found the chord use was subtle and brilliant) Barzun's point, in a wonderful essay "Berlioz after a Hundred Years" (In "Critical Questions")is that we have yet to totally figure out why so much of his music sounds right. I'd also add that we are only just maybe starting to learn how to make it sound right. Berlioz was smart, possibly smarter than any of us and it's taking us 200 years to catch up with him.



[My guess at one explanation of his greatness was his total mastery of the very poetic French language and his ability to translate that into a sort of music. His melodies often sound like someone speaking. Elliot Carter is another great composer who is intensely literate and a fine writer... and a great composer perhaps for similar reasons.]



I'll go even further, after 30 years of listening to his music I'm convinced he stands at the top platform with the handful of all-time great composers. Berlioz transformed Western art music--single-handedly--into a supple, breathing, colorful, and living thing, and in a way that few composers have managed since. Moving from the Masters (Bach through Beethoven) to Berlioz is like moving from great oil painting to motion pictures in Technicolor and that's about the best way I can describe the phenomenon (Barzun notes his unique multidimensionality). Listen to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and then listen to Benvenuto Cellini. The music, over 150 years old and only about 50 years older than Mozart's sounds totally modern, and often modern like a modern that hasn't even happened yet. Listen to Schumann's "Faust" (and I dearly love Schumann) and listen to Berlioz's and be shocked. The Schumann version sounds like flat soda in comparison. The only other composer I've encountered whose music has this same visceral "aliveness" (at times) is Shostakovich. Oddly, Berlioz can make even the mighty Strauss sound wooden and fussy (some would say Germanic).



The argument then is one shouldn't avoid anything by Berlioz and one should shop around to find recordings by conductors who understand his music (Gad! Solti doing Faust is stunning)and orchestras who can handle the twists, turns and other race car demands of the scores. This collection of choral works, many rare, many early (keeping in mind the ever-popular Fantastique is early too), is excellent with the only drawback being that a few, lovely as they are, don't showcase his best compositional assets. He was, regardless, a striking choral composer as Colin Davis noted during the recording sesssions for "Cellini." Personally, I never cared much for choral music or even opera until I forced myself to listen to the non-orchestral Berlioz. Well, at least I like HIS stuff in these genres! Everything about this disc is first-rate: performances, conducting (Plasson is an excellent Berlioz conductor) and sound. The only complaint is the cover art is awful. It looks like someone at EMI wanted to save a few bucks so they hired a vaguely talented teenage niece or something to handle it.



Finally, unlike most collections of rarities and odds and ends by composers--even the best of them--this is a set of discs I drag out, play, and enjoy regularly.



"

A fascinating collection

Samuel Stephens | TN, USA | 07/02/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This 2-CD set is one of the major Berlioz releases ever. Some of these works have not been recorded before, though some have. Most of these performances are very good, though some have been bettered. "La morte d'Orphee" is probably the weakest. Try Naxos' superb collection of the four "prix de Rome" cantatas for the best versions of those works. Also, the extremely rare "Song of the Railroads" (Le chant de chemins de fer) is given its premier commercial recording here. This is a major achievement. Back in 2002 when I was just a kid who loved researching Berlioz, I could only dream this work would be recorded. There IS another recording of it, however. You can find that recording linked to the www.hberlioz.com website.



La Revolution Grecque is the major work here, and I'm happy to report it is the best item on the CD. The final "Olympus" chorus is rousing in true Berlioz manner. The Cantata-Scena is also one of Berlioz' earliest works recorded (only the Messe Solennelle is earlier), set to words by Hector's personal friend Humbert Ferrand. It's not original like the later cantatas, but like all Berlioz is is colorful even in its flaws.



Other items like Tristia are preformed with French finesse. I do offer warning for those not overly familiar with Berlioz: ti's a bet you take if you come to these straightaway from the Fantastique and Harold. You may like what you hear, or you may find it peripheral repertoire. But for all Berliozians, it's just not an option to miss this!"