Berlioz Paray Detroit Symphony - Symphonie Fantastique Hungarian March (9 tracks) +Album Reviews

An enthralling Fantastique for the ages

Mark McCue | Denver, CO USA | 02/13/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This classic from 1960 is among Paul Paray's best recorded efforts, and that is at dizzying heights.The artist sticks to the score closely, yet utilizes the wide range of the conductor's art to mesmerizing effect. The waltz is demonic, the Sabbath manaical, the reveries and passions neurotic to the point that we have a portrait of Berlioz himself with all his obsessions. Paray is really the only conductor to give us all this and not have the work run away from him.Throughout, the Detroit Symphony revels in its virtuosity, with power to burn, tossing off wind passages in particular as if they were bon-mots.For my taste, this is one of the finest Berlioz recordings of all time."

Still enthralling for the ages

Mark McCue | Denver | 04/27/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"My unacknowledged review from a few years ago is still a reflection of how I hear and see this superlative accomplishment by Paray.But there's a little more I'd like to offer. Recently I ran across his 1948 version on old Vox vinyl with the Colonne Orchestra. The results are remarkably similar, the Colonne rather fizzier due to playing styles, the Detroit precise and capable of more light and shadow gradations due to impeccable sound. It's beyond me why De Lys in its compendium "Paul Paray: the Paris Years" declines to include the '48 Fantastique, but instead includes the Saint Saens Cto 2 with Darre already issued on a Pathe memorial to the pianist. As for Colin Davis's releases: do those who praise such obviously inferior offerings really listen to anything else or research anything they critique? If you examine the standard published scores, you find perfunctory attention or outright alterations in the British conductor's issues (can't he or his players COUNT consistently?) because the resulting slop induces shag and shake that is intolerable set against Paray's scrupulous care, communication, and achievement.This will remain THE recorded monument to Berlioz's creative stature for another 40 years."

Top Seed....Par Excellence....Happy "200th" Birthday Hector!

Peter Prainito | Lombard, IL USA | 08/07/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This almost impossible-to-find recording of the Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique" is in a class all it's own. I own quite a few recordings of this wonderful symphony (and some are quite good) but none of them has the fire and excitement of this classic Mercury Living Presence issue. The recording dates back to 1959 and sounds amazing in it's clarity. Toward the beginning of the 5th movement "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath" you can actually hear the entrance of the idee fixe theme played by the solo E-flat clarinet. In most recordings this solo starts much too quietly, but here the theme is plump and proud in all it's naughtiness! This is one example of many such orchestral details that are astounding. You can tell that Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony are just relishing playing this symphony. The emotion and drive from the beginning until the end never lets up. To make this "collector's disc" (if you are lucky enough to find a copy) even more appealing is the generous addition of The Hungarian March, Trojan March, Corsair Overture, and Roman Carnival Overture. All played with the same brillance as in the symphony.

I have a feeling that this CD may be out of print, which makes no sense given it's excellence coupled with the fact that this year marks the 200th anniversary of Berlioz' birth. Perhaps Mercury/Philips will re-release it. Hope so. I had to go to my library to find it. Good luck, it's worth the effort.

My Strongest Recommendation.

UPDATE: This SUPERB recording is back in circulation as a SACD. I just received my copy today, at a great price. It never sounded better!!! GO FOR IT!!!!!"

Stunning Symphonie Fantastique

Fidelio | Houston, TX | 01/22/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Of all the performances of Berlioz's visionary symphony that I've heard (all of Davis's, Chung, Gardiner, and others) this one is my favorite. It boasts tempi markedly faster than most versions, and with the amazing agility of the Detroit Symphony, the result is pure exhilaration. As with most Mercury Living Presence discs, the recorded sound is up close and personal--there is a certain loss of ambience, but with a performance this hot one doesn't mind being in the front row! Paray's grip of this work is so compelling it doesn't let up for a moment--by the end one is both amazed and exhausted. The overtures and marches are also performed with tremendous gusto. A spectacular achievement."

A peak for conductor, composer, symphony

Larry VanDeSande | Mason, Michigan United States | 05/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Today, Detroit is one of America's struggling cities. Its days as the world's manufacturing center now in the distant past, the city is laying off teachers and police in a lingering slow economy.

This scene could not have been more different in the 1950s, when Detroit produced half of all the cars in the world and was home to more than 2 million residents -- more than twice as many as today. Even the perennially poor Detroit Lions won three NFL championships in the 1950s and played in another.

It was at the end of that glorious decade that Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra recorded this once-in-a-lifetime performance of Berlioz's most fantastic symphony in the then-new Detroit Cass Technical High School auditorium.

Everyone on this muscial assembly line got it right: Paray blazed through the pages of Berlioz's score, the engineers brought forth a recording that might still be the best the Detroit Symphony has ever made, and the symphony itself was magnificent, as good or better than anytime since.

How can such a time in history come forth in a city hardly known as a paragon of culture? The answer would be Paray, a passionate Frenchman that build a great orchestra in Detroit and with it made some of Mercury's most wonderful recordings. Others in this sequence included Paray's own Mass, the St. Saens "Organ" Symphony and a lively Mendelssohn "Midsummer Night's Dream" sequence.

Paray brought out more from the Detroiters in his rapid fire romantic way than any resident conductor until Neemi Jarvi, who took the band on Europena tour, made a ton of recordings and again brought the orchestra to international promience.

No recording more encompasses the match made in Heavan quality of Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony than this Symphonie Fantastique. It is a rendeition most critics still hail as peer to Beecham, Ansermet, Davis and all the others that delivered a wallop in this music."

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