Post by srl1 February 4, 2011 (1 of 23)
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I received this last night from Qualiton. Here are my initial impressions.
We get the first and fourth movement repeats (yeah!), but no cornets in the waltz (boo!). The sound is quite good. Very detailed in the lower strings. The tympani in the third movement are nice. Good deep and solid, but subtle bass. The brass and violins sound natural.
Everything sounds gorgeous. What's missing is passion. It seems to be played as a straight symphonic work, not one with a romantic story behind it. I don't feel fright in the March to the Scaffold. The Witches' Sabbath is lacking in opium-induced images, more like a small Valium overdose.
But it is a beautiful performance. I don't know anything about the Cleopatre piece, but it is lovely and the signing is enchanting.
Are we going through a phase where heart-on-sleeve, passionate interpretations are out and beautiful, detailed, loving but intellectually cool playing is in? Who's going to be the next Bernstein, Stokowski, or Munch? It's hard for me to believe, but the recent Norrington on Hanssler is the most exciting of the newer recordings (and in SACD, Janowski/Pittsburgh on Pentatone).
If you like the Davis/Concertgebouw on Philips, you should like this one, and its sonics are superior.
"But," my audiophile side says, "it's a beautiful recording."
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Post by emaidel February 4, 2011 (2 of 23)
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I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of this disc in the U.S. Nezet-Seguin can be a genuinely astounding conductor. Example: his conducting of the orchestra for the New York Metropolitan Opera's recent performance of "Carmen." "Visceral," "Dynamic," and certainly "Exciting" were adjectives that came to mind while both listening to, and watching him, conduct.
I very much like his work on Atma of "La Mer," as well as Bruckner's 7th. The
"filler" on the "La Mer" disc is pretty terrific too, consisting of "Four Sea Interludes," by Britten and a highly unusual piece called "Kaleidoscope," written by a young French composer named Pierre Mercure, who unfortunately died in a tragic auto accident at the age of 39.
His rendition of the Saint-Saens' "Organ" Symphony, also on Atma, is a mixed bag: all of the orchestral work is outstanding, but for reasons I'll never understand, the organ isn't anywhere near loud enough. Its mighty entrance in the final movement is actually written as only a "forte," but on this recording, it's nothing of the sort. Too bad, since everything else is so good.
Then there's Nezet-Seguin's version of the glorious Brahms "Ein Deutsches Requiem." A bitter, bitter disappointment, since Nezet-Seguin plays it so slowly, one might actually wonder if something went horribly wrong in the recording studio. It's, at least in my opinion, one of the worst available recordings of the Requiem.
So, I await the "Symphonie Fantastique." My current favorite is Valery Giergev on Phillips, which is an SACD that's just about impossible to find anymore. It blows away Paavo Jarvi's recording on Telarc, despite the high praise The Absolute Sound had for that recording.
I have three CD's of the "Fantastique," as well as a very old Audio FIdelity LP, which, when I bought it sometime during the 60's, was my introduction to the piece. A subsequent purchase of the Charles Munch RCA Living Stereo LP quickly eclipsed the Audio Fidelity LP, conducted by Arthur Winograd. But Giergev's is still my favorite - at least for the time being.
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Post by Vaan February 4, 2011 (3 of 23)
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I have heard some of Nézet-Séguin´s Atma recordings and I didn´t like them. His Bruckner is slow and micro-managed to the extreme. Probably the most non-involving ever for me. Why anyone thinks it a good idea to release his lame version of Symphonie fantastique is beyond me. If you read Berlioz´ description of the work and listen to this recording you can easily be excused for thinking they are two different pieces. The passion and longing that Berlioz writes about and put down in notes are not to be found here. This sounds like a tired rehearsal.
The Cleopatra is much better.
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Post by seth February 4, 2011 (4 of 23)
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Having heard YNS live at both the MET and Philadelphia Orchestra, so far I think he's proven to be a better opera conductor -- this seasons "Don Carlo" was outstanding.
But I'm still looking forward to this and future releases.
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Post by Vaan February 4, 2011 (5 of 23)
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Maybe he is better live.
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Post by srl1 February 8, 2011 (6 of 23)
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After I wrote my above comments on this SACD, I felt like I might have been overly critical about the performance. Well, David Hurwitz at Classics Today just published his review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=13201
I don't always agree with Mr. Hurwitz. He does have some interesting "blind spots," but since he pretty much agrees with my assessment, I feel a little bit relieved. Of course, it's entirely possible that we are both wrong...
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Post by akiralx February 9, 2011 (7 of 23)
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srl1 said:
After I wrote my above comments on this SACD, I felt like I might have been overly critical about the performance. Well, David Hurwitz at Classics Today just published his review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=13201
I don't always agree with Mr. Hurwitz. He does have some interesting "blind spots," but since he pretty much agrees with my assessment, I feel a little bit relieved. Of course, it's entirely possible that we are both wrong...
I agree with Hurwitz, this is a decent performance but totally unremarkable. And the bells in the final are strangely feeble. Not a patch on Colin Davis' Concertgebouw SACD, or Chung on RBCD (perhaps the finest digital Fantastique).
I heard a rumour that Abbado was going to record it with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra but nothing seems to have come of that...
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Post by srl1 February 9, 2011 (8 of 23)
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akiralx said:
I agree with Hurwitz, this is a decent performance but totally unremarkable. And the bells in the final are strangely feeble. Not a patch on Colin Davis' Concertgebouw SACD, or Chung on RBCD (perhaps the finest digital Fantastique).
I heard a rumour that Abbado was going to record it with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra but nothing seems to have come of that...
I have the Chung. I'll go back and give it another listen. I vaguely remember liking it.
I have the old DG Abbado/Chicago Symphony CD. I remember when it came out that at least one reviewer complained about its large dynamic range, and how it must have been done by the engineers. I guess he failed to realize that no one maintains dynamic contrasts better than Abbado. He seems to get orchestras to play softer than any other conductor.
I would love to hear/see him do another Fantastique. I believe his work since his cancer fight has been light-years better, like the Beethoven symphony cycle on DVD and all of those wonderful Mahler DVD/BluRay symphony releases over the last few years. I have his BluRay Mahler 9th on the way and am trying to find time to watch his BluRay with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra that has just arrived.
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Post by seth February 9, 2011 (9 of 23)
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srl1 said:
After I wrote my above comments on this SACD, I felt like I might have been overly critical about the performance. Well, David Hurwitz at Classics Today just published his review:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=13201
I don't always agree with Mr. Hurwitz. He does have some interesting "blind spots," but since he pretty much agrees with my assessment, I feel a little bit relieved. Of course, it's entirely possible that we are both wrong...
I agree 100% with Hurwitz on this point:
"The problem is, the Symphonie fantastique isn't really a 'sonic spectacular' at all; it can be, but only when its challenges and opportunities as one of the most difficult pieces in the entire repertoire are met head-on."
Most performances are so plush and about sonic grandeur that they completely obfuscate Berlioz's unusual and unique orchestration.
While I like a go for broke performance of SF as much as anyone, one of my favorite recordings is Gardiner's. He reveals why the symphony was so controversial and disliked in times -- he and his orchestra evoke a totally different sound than we're used to hearing (Berlioz composed specifically for the instruments of his time, using instruments that were already considered antiquated -- now I'm not saying that the only way to do justice to SF is to use period instruments, but just that conductors typically ignore the fact that Berlioz didn't intend the symphony to have a luxurious romantic sound).
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Post by emaidel February 23, 2011 (10 of 23)
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All of the listed sources for this disc in the U.S. here on SA-CD.net, list this disc as either "out of stock," or "temporarily unavailable." I found one remaining copy at Arkivmusic.com, and ordered it. It was shipped yesterday (2/22), and should arrive at my home in a few days.
I too usually agree with Hurwitz at Classics Today, save his scathing review of the Vanska/BIS recording of the 1888 version of Bruckner's 4th, so I'll reserve judgement on this "Symphonie Fantastique" until I listen to it. As I've stated, Nezet-Seguin runs the gamut from really terrific, to just plain awful. I sure hope this disc is more to the former than the latter!
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