All recordingsPrices shown exclude VAT. (UK tax is not payable for deliveries to United States.)
See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
| | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
2CD+DVD This experienced choir perform a favourite Christmas work with soloists Jane Henschel contralto, Yann Beuron tenor, Phillipe Rouillon bass, Gabor Breta baritone and Eric Martin-Bonnet bass with Sylvain Cambreling conducting. | | | (also available to download from $20.75) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz - L’Enfance du Christ & Romeo & Juliet
Hector Berlioz was the author of the text to his choral work L’Enfance du Christ (The Childhood of Christ), he did not like to call it an Oratorio, and composed the music between 1850 and 1854. The years of composition were not happy for Berlioz, his father had died in 1848 and two years later his wife, the Irish actress Harriet Smithson (whose performances had revealed the genius of Shakespeare can caused him to compose so many works inspired by that great writer) became severely paralysed and died the same year as the work’s first performance. The work is in three parts with four major soloists, a Narrator (tenor), Mary (mezzo-soprano), Joseph (baritone) and Herod (bass-baritone) and a four part choir. André Cluytens’s recording dating from 1965/6 has become a classic and his admiration for the work is clear, bringing the best from the team four superb international soloists – Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda, Roger Soyer and Ernest Blanc. The set is completed by the recording of the orchestral music from Roméo and Juliette that Carlo Maria Giulini made with his Chicago orchestra in 1969. | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
Berlioz held traditional religion in contempt, but something of the biblical story of Herod’s massacre of the innocents and the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt seems to have struck a chord and resulted in one of his most beautiful works. Indeed, Berlioz compared his ‘trilogie sacrée’ to the illuminations in medieval missals: he saw it as an aid to contemplative devotion. L’Enfance du Christ is one of Berlioz’s most popular and enduring works. The renowned Corydon Singers and Corydon Orchestra, under their conductor and founder Matthew Best, are joined by a first-class team of soloists. 2 CD's for price of 1. Originally issued on CDA66991/2 “The recording is surely the best available” BBC Music Magazine “Luminous Berlioz, with some superb soloists” Classic CD “An engaging and moving recording with superb singing from soloists Alastair Miles, Jean Rigby and Gerald Finley” Classic FM Magazine “Best treats L'enfance du Christ as overtly operatic, not so much by cast movements or varied microphone placings as by his pacing of the action and by encouraging his artists to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the emotions of the story.
He gets off to a tremendous start with a superb reading by a black-voiced Alastair Miles as a Herod haunted by his dream and startled into belligerent wakefulness by the arrival of Polydorus.
Later, there's desperate urgency in the appeals for shelter by Joseph (an otherwise gently lyrical Gerald Finley), harshly rebuffed by the chorus. And, throughout, there are spatial perspectives – the soldiers' patrol advancing (from practically inaudible pizzicatos) to centrestage and going off again; and a beautifully hushed and atmospheric faraway 'Amen' at the end. Balance in general is excellent.
The clear enunciation (in very good French) of nearly everyone is a plus point. The chorus's response to the mood and meaning of words is always alert and sensitive, matched by the nuanced orchestral playing. The scurrying of the Ishmaelite family to help, played really pianissimo, is vividly graphic; and their home entertainment on two flutes and a harp, which can mark a drop in the interest, here has great charm. But overall it's Best's pacing which makes this recording distinctive.
This recording stands comparison well with its much-praised predecessors.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “This new recording of Berlioz's appealing work well stands comparison with its much-praised predecessors” Gramophone Magazine “Matthew Best's version offers a keenly dramatic view...Jean Rigby is a young-sounding Mary, with Gerald Finley warm and expressive as Joseph...An ideal choice for those who want an intimate view and a superb modern recording” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition “No previous recording has moved me like this one - magical - heavenly” The Independent | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
| | | (Sorry, download not available in your country) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
Ed Lyon, David Wilson-Johnson, Mireille Delunsch, Masahi Tsuji and William Dazeley are the soloists in this excellent performance of Berlioz’s oratorio based on the childhood of Christ. In this work Berlioz shows a seldom seen side of his personality, choosing to tell his story using an appropriately simple, almost naïve musical structure, rather than the huge forces and fanfares so common to his other compositions. Glorious performances all round under the baton of choral expert, Ivor Bolton. | | | (also available to download from $20.75) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
“John Eliot Gardiner in his vivid reading also has the advantage of fine modern recording… very well balanced and atmospheric. Anne Sofie von Otter’s Mary is outstanding, singing with rapt simplicity.” Penguin Guide *** | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
“Yet having already recorded to excellent versions of this intimate, gently luminous masterpiece… what more can Davis add? Not improvement, perhaps, but a different approach. …here his reading seems more measured and translucent, more classical. His soloists are mostly young, clear voices. Matthew Rose's Herod is striking... Karin Cargill... is a wonderfully delicate and simple St Mary alongside Dazeley's restrained Joseph and Peter Rose's benevolently resonant Ishmaelite. Beuron, probably today's finest French lyric tenor, gives the performance an essential idiomatic core in his Narration.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 ***** “Davis phrases Berlioz's lines with all their latent anxiety and sadness, and with that curious sense of regret that David Cairns's essay suggests gives an added sharpness to the telling as the agnostic Berlioz "remembers what is was like to have faith".” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007 | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25
Sophie Rehbinder (mezzo), Philippe Georges (tenor), Jacques Bona (baritone) Orchestre Symphonique Leopolis, Jean-Pierre Lore | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
|
|
| |  | Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ, Op. 25(arr. Jean-Pierre Arnaud)
Françoise-Marie Drieux (soprano), Lionel Peintre (baritone), Christian Fromont (speaker), Ensemble Carpe Diem New arrangement, without chorus | | | Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days. |
|
|
| |
|
Building a Library
