Charles Dutoit, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal - Hector Berlioz: Symphonie funèbre et triomphale, Roméo et Juliette (1990)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 299 Mb | Total time: 75:06 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Decca | 425 001-2 | Recorded: 1985
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 299 Mb | Total time: 75:06 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Decca | 425 001-2 | Recorded: 1985
Another feather in the Dutoit/Montreal/Decca cap, not least for the sound engineers' achievement in so brilliantly capturing the mammoth sonorities of the Symphonie funebre et triomphale (whose first performance Berlioz conducted walking backwards at the head of his huge wind-and-percussion band, though—alas for the legend!—with a baton, not a sword). For concert hall, rather than open air performance he later added strings and a chorus, and it is this version that is adopted here (as it was in Colin Davis's 1969 Philips recording). Splendid as that issue was, this new one even surpasses it in clarity and impact, with its majestic brass chords and a chorus that adds incisively to the final climax.