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Béatrice et Bénédict was borne of Berlioz’s lifelong fascination with Shakespeare. A performance by the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet reportedly inspired him to commence work on his own Roméo et Juliette, a large-scale dramatic symphony. He had fallen headlong in love with her after seeing her as Ophelia in 1827 and later wrote, ‘I came out of Hamlet shaken to the core.’He also contemplated setting Antony and Cleopatra to music, but it was not until many years later (1860) that he settled on Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. Although had considered the idea of an opera on this play as early as 1833, it turned out to be his final opera. Berlioz produced his own libretto – a much revised version of the story, with several of the original characters absent. It nonetheless remains faithful to Shakespeare’s play. Berlioz claimed he wrote this opera to relax after the stress of completing the vast Les Troyens – and said it was ‘a caprice written with the point of a needle’. Indeed, it is scored lightly, and has a warm and gentle wit to it, ideally suited to the subject.

‘Minton’s beautiful voice and her warm understanding of Berlioz’s style are again evident … Daniel Barenboim conducts with enthusiasm.’ Gramophone

Digital recording made by Denon. This release is available in Europe only.

Booklet essay and sung texts.

‘Haunted by the absence of God’ is how the Berlioz biographer David Cairns described the Grande Messe des morts. Written at a time and in a country where there was no place for God after the Revolution, it is a work of genuine mourning and high drama. In 1837 Berlioz was commissioned by the French Interior Ministry to write something that could be used for major public ceremonies. He had already composed a Messe solenelle in 1824, and he turned to this work for both material and inspiration. The resulting Requiem is one of the largest religious works of all time – and in length compares with Verdi’s Requiem and Britten’s War Requiem. Berlioz, like Bruckner, saw his work scored for massive choral and instrumental forces, as almost architectural in structure. He certainly wanted to fill every possible part of the cathedral or church with sound. This remarkable work looks back as well as forwards – the influence of past masters such as Gossec and Cherubini hovers over the Requiem, but there is also a break with tradition. This is a deeply personal work.It is violent, frightening, and often uncomfortable. Berlioz wrote, ‘The poetry of the Prose des morts so intoxicated and exalted me that nothing presented itself to my mind with any clarity: my head was seething, I felt quite dizzy.’ It is also, for all its grandeur, an austere work. The massive choral and orchestral sections present a forbidding if impressive façade and this is only broken in one section which allows the tenor soloist a brief moment in the spotlight. This austerity no doubt reflects the influence of Cherubini whose C minor Requiem of 1815 has no soloists.

A superb reissue, formerly issued on the prestigious Denon label, of the “dramatic legend” La Damnation de Faust, written (both music and libretto) by Hector Berlioz, after the famous “Faust” of Goethe. Recorded in the late eighties of the last century, when the great Israeli conductor Eliahu Inbal spent a remarkably successful and fruitful period in Frankfurt with its orchestra, resulting in several impressive symphonic cycles, notably the legendary complete Mahler Symphonies.Apart from the great artistic value of these recordings, the special one-point recording technique used by the Denon engineers is still a marvel of natural recorded sound. Wonderful soloists: Maria Ewing, Denes Gulyás, Robert Lloyd and the young Christiane Oelze. Territory: Europe only. Although little appreciated in his native France for many years, Hector Berlioz now safely resides among the giants of the 19th century’s musical scene. The composer’s vocal output is extensive and includes several operatic works; written during 1845–46, La Damnation de Faust forms the subject of this engaging 2CD release.

The work grew out of Berlioz’s encounter with Goethe, one of the great influences – together with Shakespeare – on the composer’s creativity. A hybrid composition which employs just four principal singers and a chorus, as befits a ‘concert’ setting, La Damnation de Faust is too theatrical to work in this guise – and, alas, too impractical to be staged successfully. Nevertheless it remains an intensely dramatic piece: listen out for the violent orchestral outpourings of the Hungarian March as well as the ‘Ride to Hell’, which leads to a terrible vision of Pandemonium. Residing among the composer’s most intense and thrilling music, the work features many ballet episodes and includes Marguerite’s song – one of the greatest French operatic scenes. ‘Inbal has a fine ear for Berlioz's orchestration, matched by sensitive recording, so that time and again details spring into dramatic life…a distinctive and intelligent performance… No lover of the work should miss hearing it.’ Gramophone, July 1991

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique of 1830 was his direct response to hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for the first time. He claimed that the work ‘took up music from where Beethoven left it’. There can be no doubt that the revolutionary German composer had a huge influence upon the hot-headed young French composer, who already had a thorough knowledge of Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Seventh Symphonies from a series of concerts given in Paris conducted by François Antoine Habeneck in 1828. However, Berlioz’s style owes a lot to Cherubini and Spontini as well. These two giants of the Paris Opera were admired by Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner, and the ‘modern’ music they composed captured the feverish and impassioned imagination of the young Berlioz.

At the time of composing the Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz was head over heels in love with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, having seen her in every production of Shakespeare. Berlioz placed himself, the artist, at the centre of the action in his programmatic symphony. Although the five movements or character pieces can be difficult to grasp if one approaches this work as one would a Beethoven symphony, once the events in the composer’s life can be laid over the musical goings-on, the work suddenly gels into a fantastical journey through the mind of a love-obsessed, opium-drugged artist. Strange visions haunt him on his journey, and all these are illustrated in extraordinary scoring and effects. The early cantata Herminie (1828) was written for the Prix de Rome contest, and is one of four that Berlioz composed for the competition. He came second, probably due to the ‘dissident’ way he concluded the work, not in a blaze of glory which the conservative judges (led by Berton, who disliked Spontini intensely) expected, but in a quiet, lengthy diminuendo ending pianissimo for cellos alone. Otherwise the work is efficient and well executed. Berlioz drew on this work when composing his symphony Romeo and Juliet, and one theme from it appears in the Symphonie fantastique.

Composed some 12 years after Berlioz’s Requiem, his Te Deum is in many respects a close relation of the earlier work. Again it is on a large scale, written for triple choir, large orchestra, organ and tenor soloist. Where the Te Deum differs is in the range of colours it projects. There is much more in the way of light and shade, more a sense of praising God, rather than fearing him as is conveyed in the Requiem, at least until the awesome final ‘Judex crederis’. Both works plundered the 1824 Messe solenelle, and Berlioz commented to Liszt that ‘the Requiem has a brother’. We know little about the reasons why Berlioz composed this work. Maybe the upcoming coronation of Louis-Napoleon provided the stimulus – we know that Berlioz was lobbying for the honour of writing a suitable work for the new Emperor. Berlioz had also examined in Dresden the score of a large-scale Te Deum by Hasse, and commented on the dramatic effect made by the pealing of bells in the score. Some of the early material was intended for an aborted Fête musicale funèbre of1835. This later became the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, and the section where Berlioz imagines ‘General Bonaparte making his entry beneath the cathedral vaults’ may have been the catalyst for the Te Deum.

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) was the founder of the group of Russian composers called ‘The Mighty Handful’. Together with Borodin, Rimsky Korsakov, Cui and Mussorgsky he helped create a distinctive Russian school of music that was not reliant on the influence of the Austro German school.

Studying at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, he won the praise of Glinka, and had an influence on the young Tchaikovsky. He wrote two symphonies, two piano concertos, several symphonic poems and many piano works. On these 6CDs his entire output for piano can be found.

A superb pianist, he produced one of the most taxing works ever written for the instrument, his Oriental Fantasy Islamey. His piano sonata is no less impressive, and the Seven Mazurkas are wonderfully melodic works. There is much to discover on these discs. Sadly, Balakirev suffered a complete nervous breakdown in 1871, and he withdrew from life, eventually emerging to take up a minor management role on the railways.

In 1876 he began to compose again, and in 1883 was appointed as director of the Imperial Chapel. He retired in 1895, and continued composing, but by now considered old fashioned and was forgotten even by his old friends. However, one young composer, Igor Stravinsky had a soft spot for him, and pitied him as he suffered from bouts of depression.

Throughout the ages Freemasonry has always viewed music as a fundamental and powerful aspect of their moral and ethical doctrine. Vice versa many composers found in the Freemasonry an expression of their own personal beliefs and philosophies. This CD presents an original selection of works by composers associated with Freemasonry: Spontini, Berlioz, Clementi, Sibelius, Puccini, Ciannella. New recordings, by various ensembles and orchestras, on original instruments when relevant. Booklet notes in Italian and English.

A society whose origins date back to the late-16th century, freemasonry has always viewed music as a powerful tool for communicating its fundamental message: to encourage a moral and ethical approach to life.While Mozart is undoubtedly the most famous composer associated with the movement, this engaging CD reveals some of the many others who were involved or whose work conforms to the society’s ideologies.

This collection begins with a world premiere recording on period instruments of two works by the Italian opera composer and conductor Spontini. As well as featuring various unpublished compositions by the contemporary Marco Ciannella, such as his Suite for flute and piano, the collection also explores Clementi’s little-known Symphony in B flat before visiting Puccini’s Crisantemi (a single, dark-hued elegy originally written for string quartet) and Sibelius’ Andante festivo – the composer’s most apparently religious statement, full-throated and hymn-like in sound. Although comprising highly varied music that reveals the diversity of styles embraced by freemasonry, this collection is also striking for its pervading sense of beauty – a beauty that is the essence of the society’s ‘column of harmony’. A charming assortment of carefully selected works that gives equal standing to the famous and less wellknown.