Thread: Linn CKD 400 " Symphony (Not so?) Fantastique"

Posts: 7

Post by hiredfox April 21, 2012 (1 of 7)
In an earlier thread we were somewhat dismissive of the announcement that the diminutive Scottish Chamber Orchestra had recorded this large scale work, their first recording with new maestro 'sensation', 27 years old Robin Ticciati, who happens to be a Londoner despite his very Italianate family name.

There is no official entry yet and I am working with Stephen to get this up-loaded today but let me allay any fears that may have been engendered in jest earlier on. This is a commanding performance with Ticciati demonstrating a level of control, vision and maturity that belies his youth. Aided by first class playing by the SCO and a brilliantly detailed and balanced recording by Linn the performance amounts to arguably the best Symphony Fantastique yet on SACD.

A must buy for every classical music lover on here one would have thought and a disc likely to garner more than a few accolades and awards. Watch this man he seems to be the real deal.

Good for Linn too for despite their bombast over the demise of the (sic) compact disc and their well-aired (yawn!) corporate commitment to a down-loading future, they do still recognise that there is a very healthy audiophile community out here who prefer what the Super Audio physical disc can offer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Berlioz-Symphonie-Fantastique-Hector/dp/B0072IVH0K/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1335003154&sr=1-1

Post by Chris April 21, 2012 (2 of 7)
Listened a bit to it at Amazon today. Lean, lean, lean.
I for one DO NOT like Berlioz lean.
Now if Jared were to do a Symphonie Fantastique I might be tempted. But this thin, wiry hip approach? No way!
I couldn't care less what some reviewers find so appealing in doing things contrary to what the composer wanted.
Berlioz for the MP3 generation? Scaled down to sound ok on an iPhone or what is this joke supposed to do?
The March to the Scaffold sounds puny!
Decidedly not for me!

Post by sunnydaler April 21, 2012 (3 of 7)
Chris said:

Listened a bit to it at Amazon today. Lean, lean, lean.
I for one DO NOT like Berlioz lean.
Now if Jared were to to a Symphonie Fantastique I might be tempted. But this thin, wiry hip approach? No way!
I couldn't care less what some reviewers find so appealing in doing things contrary to what the composer wanted?
Berlioz for the Mp3 generation? Scaled down to sound ok on an iPhone or what is this joke supposed to do?
The March to the Scaffold sounds puny!
Decidedly not for me!

http://samples.prestoclassical.co.uk/ss/0691062040020/1/04.flac.mp3
sounds lean and the ensemble are not together at 0'24"(4th mvt.)
But I wouldn't dismiss it altogether before listening to the whole performance.
http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-berlioz--symphonie-fantastique.aspx
http://www.classicstodayfrance.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=4213
Reviews are positive.

Post by Claude April 21, 2012 (4 of 7)
If this was a regular Symphonie fantastique interpretation, there would be comments on this forum about there being 20 recordings available on SACD already

Post by Kal Rubinson April 21, 2012 (5 of 7)
Claude said:

If this was a regular Symphonie fantastique interpretation, there would be comments on this forum about there being 20 recordings available on SACD already

Right. It is an unusual sound for SF but a pretty nice performance.

Post by TxMark1962 April 21, 2012 (6 of 7)
Hmmmm.....lean interpretations for Symphonie Fantastique?? Sorry, but not for this camper....then again, I feel the same towards interpretations of Bach with 1 singer per part...

My first exposure to a killer recording of SF was (and that recording is still at least to me the absolute best) the 1971 Decca recording with Solti and the CSO recorded by Kenneth Wilkinson in the Krannert Center at the Univ Of Illinois. I have yet to find ANY recording of SF that even approaches the stunning playing and sound of the CSO as well as a brass section that was at the top of their game. Even friends who dislike massive brass were still impressed by the stunning tuning and volume achieved by a mere 13 players.

I do not expect to ever find an SACD of SF to replace the CSO unless someone finally give the Decca Solti/CSO SF a well deserved SACD remaster.....And listening to this recording for more than 30 years will never allow me to appreciate a chamber symphony interpretation...sorry..

Cheers,

Post by seth April 21, 2012 (7 of 7)
Chris said:

I couldn't care less what some reviewers find so appealing in doing things contrary to what the composer wanted.

Not so.

Unlike most composers of his time, Berlioz was a prolific writer, so we actually do have a clear idea of what his views were on how his music should be performed.

First, SF was written to be performed at the Paris Conservatoire which is a 1,000 seat concert hall that can only accommodate about a 50 person orchestra. There were certainly larger venues at this time in Paris, but Berlioz favored it. In his memoirs Berlioz writes of conducting SF with as few as 45 to 55 musicians while in Germany and being impressed with the results. He also notes that he had to demand upwards of 100 to 120 musicians when the quality of the musicians available were poor so to try and minimize the impact of the bad players. Just because his other pieces call for many more musicians doesn't mean those are the forces he wanted for everything else he wrote.

On issues of instrumentation, Berlioz specifically wrote for the sound of the natural horn. In his treatise on orchestration, "Grand Traite d'Instrumentation et d'Orchestration Modernes," Berlioz praises the capabilities of the valved horn, but says that its single biggest drawback is its tonal color. We see examples of this in SF, such as his instruction to the horns in the beginning of the 4th movement that they "produce the stopped tones with the hand without using the valves." This direction is completely ignored by modern orchestras. And the reason Berlioz was so clear with this direction was because he knew that when horn players using valved horns were playing music written for the natural horn to be played stopped, they were playing them opened -- he wrote about this issue in his treatise.

And then the most famous part of SF, the Dies Irae, was originally written for serpent and ophicleide. The serpent was specifically chosen because at the time in Paris, the Dies Irae was chanted by church choirs with an accompanying serpent. Also in the Dies Irae is the issue of the bells. Based on the pitches that the bells are to be played, you'd need extremely large bells typically found at the top of cathedrals (which is why Berlioz says that pianos can be used instead). Most conductors just use the standard fire-bell in their percussion section, which in no way produces the deep sound Berlioz wanted. Some conductors have gone as far as to have bells specially made for SF, some have played the bells with the piano, and some use recordings of church bells.

I have nothing against modern performances of SF, but they do fail to capture the unique sound-scape Berlioz created. Gardiner's recording tries to capture it, right down to being recorded at the Paris Conservatoire. It's certainly not pretty sounding, but if you read the original reviews of SF, a lot of people despised it because they thought it sounded ugly.

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