Berlioz: Orchestral Works

Advantages: Great performances of popular favourites and some rare gems
Disadvantages: Barely none, with perhaps slight issues with sound.

.... As is appropriate, there is quite a lot of Berlioz included, for he is one of the greatest orchestrators that ever was and his music really defines what "colour" in music is. There are two selections from the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust (a strange cantata-opera-symphony hybrid), beginning with the "Ballet de Sylphes," a light and fairy-like little waltz, giving ample proof that Berlioz could write music subtle as wind when he wanted to. The following "Menuet des feux follets" is likewise sweetly light, but features little surges of drama appropriate in a witches' sabbath, which allows the good humour of drunken dancing to sweep the section to a close. To cap off the sensitive Berlioz, there is the subtle and magical "Queen Mab Scherzo" from his "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette that is filled with quicksilver movement, magical feeling... Read review

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Advantages: Colourful and always exciting
Disadvantages: absolutely none

...Harriet Smithson, who had just arrived with an English theatre group for performances of some of Shakespeare's plays. This created a massive impact on the very neurotic young man, who soon became obsessed with her. When she left Paris, it caused a crisis in Berlioz's life. Fuelled with his vivid imagination, the new musical influences, poetry and jealousy, he started writing a symphony, but not just any kind of symphony. THE SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, OP.14 "An episode in the life of an artist" The Symphonie fantastique is a unique work in many ways. In 1830, a symphony was still conceived as a four movement, abstract work, with a certain expected structure. Berlioz's symphony had five movements, a literary programme, a larger orchestra than ever before, and a structural device that he called the "idée fixe," a melody that appears in every... Read review

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Advantages: The idee fixe. Unique and contrasting.
Disadvantages: None whatsoever.

...Composed by Hector Belioz Performed by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) Conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras Label Royal Philharmonic Price £12.99 Available in most good music stores Berlioz was born in Lyons in 1803 and spent most of his working life in Paris. Belioz used his musical idol Beethoven as his role model when composing his Symphony Fantastique. He was obsessed by the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. He wrote her dozens of letters to which she never replied. Years later, she they did meet and they eventually married though not successfully. Berlioz decided to express his experiences through music. Using Beethoven's handling of the symphony, Berlioz set about to construct a a symphony that retained many of the traditional elements yet pushed it towards a new direction. Symphonie Fantastique has five movements each... Read review

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