Hector Berlioz

“The IPO has recorded a significant repertoire of masterworks during the years. In this special anniversary tribute album, you can find a representative selection of some of the orchestra's best recordings of the last 50 years. In its 70th anniversary (which is also my 70th birthday), I would like to wish the orchestra and all music lovers many years of great music of the highest possible standard." Zubin Mehta

‘A mix of futurism à la Metropolis, fantasy à la Batman and quotes from Piranesi’s Carceri, juxtaposed in the form of photo montages, enhanced with … robots, a helicopter, a shark and the winged vehicle of a pop star Pope’, was how the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described this astonishing Salzburg Festival production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini.

The high-calibre cast, headed by Burkhard Fritz as the temperamental Renaissance artist and the 26-year-old Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska as Teresa, the woman with whom he tries to elope, is conducted by Valery Gergiev who “pulled out all the stops. He whips the Vienna Philharmonic into a delirium similar to that which possibly took hold of the composer” (Der Standard). This is French grand opera at its fast-paced and spectacularly-staged best.

HIGH DEFINITION 1080i 60

PCM Stereo. DTS-HD 5.1

Berlioz’s ‘dramatic symphony’ of 1839 (at least seven years in the making) is a further refinement, nine years after the prodigious Symphonie fantastique, of his love, bordering on obsession, for the plays of Shakespeare and the symphonies of Beethoven; both of whom he did much to promote as a reluctant but hard-working critic against the prevailing wind of a sceptical Parisian culture that was enamoured of the products of its own nation.

Somehow it’s inevitable, then, that the most startling, original and moving passages in the symphony are the central triptych of instrumental movements, ‘Roméo seul’, the Love Scene and the Queen Mab Scherzo, where Berlioz moves beyond words to evoke the pain of his tragic protagonists and the evanescent dream-fairy of the Scherzo. Here Berlioz demands the most acutely sensitive response from his performers – it’s appropriate that the whole score is dedicated to Nicolò Paganini – and here too, therefore, this recording gains particular lustre through the incomparably rich playing of the Vienna Philharmonic. Sir Colin Davis is known worldwide as the conductor who has done more than any other (and probably more than any musician in history) not only to bring Berlioz to public consciousness but to inspire respect and then love for a composer whom fellow musicians long derided. His later performances and recordings have revelled in ever more minutely nuanced detail than his pioneering efforts, and of course benefitted from the advances in recording technology that have enabled Berlioz’s remarkable orchestration to glint and startle as never before on record.

These two live recordings were recorded during the orchestra’s concert season at Birmingham Town Hall and the result is another unusual and innovative recording in SOMM’s catalogue. The orchestra perform with infectious enthusiasm and the Berlioz is a premiere recording of this version.

This delightful new recording features the Hildegard Choir of Oxford exploring the rich repertoire of music written for female voices, focusing on the themes of childhood, motherhood (and fatherhood) and the nativity from Mary’s perspective. The CD includes music from France, Germany, England and some enchanting and little-known pieces from Slovakia.