BaL 15.10.11 - Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

[Don Petter]

... various amazon sellers even cheaper - incl. postage, abt £5...

You do a further public service! I didn't do any real research, just happened to hit the Crotchet site first.

[Don Petter]

I note that, up to my giving up on cataloguing some ten or more years ago, I have without trying, as someone so aptly put it, acquired nine versions on CD.

Only two of these appear in EA's starting list:

Barbirolli
Rozhdestvensky

The rest may have been mentioned by other posters. They are:

Andrew Davis
Beecham (ORTF)*
Cluytens (Philharmonia)
Menuhin
Perlea
Previn
Walter (NY Phil)

* The stereo one. The mono version (different performance) was also issued on CD in the Beecham Edition, which I'm sure I've also got somewhere!

It may be of interest to look at this site, which seems pretty comprehensive (264 versions, at any rate):

http://patachonf.free.fr/musique/berlioz/fantastique.php?p=tout

[MrGongGong]

Cairns is very good on why the notion of 'programme music' seems to deter some from really enjoying the Symphonie Fantastique - he shows how it mattered to Berlioz, but also how it shouldn't get in the way of those (such as me) who might otherwise turn up their noses at such a low form of art as 'programme music'...

that's interesting
my "problem" with programme music is not that it doesn't work for some people but more that music IS essentially an abstract artform, for me it's about SOUND not the communication of a narrative or evocation of place. It( " might be that music has this effect but the music itself is not about Balls, marching to scaffolds or feeling that one is in the countryside etc

having said that I do think that Berlioz was a great composer and there are some wonderful things in his music though as he placed such importance on the programme of SF I find the idea that I can simply ignore it a bit hard to go with.
I'm reminded of the thread about someone wanting music that was "about" the woods , much of what people come up with has little in terms of soundworld to do with the woods and more to do with 'filmic' association or even linguistic association (which seems to be the norm these days !).............

listening to Berlioz with my post Cage ears ("Let sounds be themselves rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expression of human sentiments") I find there is plenty to enjoy and be stimulated by

[makropulos]

Regarding the bells, Berlioz only seems to mention them in his Memoirs when he had difficulty finding them on his tours abroad and the one or two pianos seemed to the preferred alternatve. Possibly this is why he added pianos to the score as an alternative. He also seemes to have had difficulty in finding harps on his tours and again used the piano as a stand-in. There is no mention of a lack of bells in the early Paris performances. .

Very true, but nor is there any mention of them either - which is maybe more surprising given that the appearance of bells in a symphony in 1830 is likely to have been noted by someone - not least because nobody (as far as I know) had ever included parts for bells in any symphony before. Perhaps more to the point, despite decades of searching, nobody has produced plausible candidates for which bells Berlioz might have used in Paris - let alone abroad. As for "adding" pianos as an alternative, this wasn't an afterthought - they are clearly given as an option on the autograph manuscript, not just in the first edition. It's quite an intriguing issue.

[visualnickmos]

Hi PJPJ (msg32)

Yes I have this one - an EMI CD - a gem from Cheapo Cheapo (now closed) in Rupert Street, Soho. Picked it up for 2 or 3 squids some years ago. A great performance.

[aeolium]

that's interesting
my "problem" with programme music is not that it doesn't work for some people but more that music IS essentially an abstract artform, for me it's about SOUND not the communication of a narrative or evocation of place. It( " might be that music has this effect but the music itself is not about Balls, marching to scaffolds or feeling that one is in the countryside etc

having said that I do think that Berlioz was a great composer and there are some wonderful things in his music though as he placed such importance on the programme of SF I find the idea that I can simply ignore it a bit hard to go with.
I'm reminded of the thread about someone wanting music that was "about" the woods , much of what people come up with has little in terms of soundworld to do with the woods and more to do with 'filmic' association or even linguistic association (which seems to be the norm these days !).............

listening to Berlioz with my post Cage ears ("Let sounds be themselves rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expression of human sentiments") I find there is plenty to enjoy and be stimulated by

Mr GG, I'm interested in how you listen to some music in that way. For instance, can one ignore the narrative programme in Schubert's Die Winterreise, where the music expresses both narrative and feeling and though the music is non-linguistic it is directly associated with the poem's language? What of a Mozart aria, or indeed any opera scena? When Beethoven wrote "from the heart - may it go to the heart" on the score of the Missa Solemnis, was he imagining someone listening to the work as an abstract work of art, a series of patterns of sounds?
Surely most compositions are meaningful arrangements of sounds, and listeners (well, me anyway) seek meaning in those arrangements? That doesn't mean invariably thinking of a programme or sentiment, but simply trying to be attentive to what the composer has sought to convey.

[amateur51]

True, vins-de-France.... I was being conductor-centric

And you were rewarded with his wrath, Caliban

wrath

roth

I'll get me coat

[MrGongGong]

Mr GG, I'm interested in how you listen to some music in that way. For instance, can one ignore the narrative programme in Schubert's Die Winterreise, where the music expresses both narrative and feeling and though the music is non-linguistic it is directly associated with the poem's language? What of a Mozart aria, or indeed any opera scena? When Beethoven wrote "from the heart - may it go to the heart" on the score of the Missa Solemnis, was he imagining someone listening to the work as an abstract work of art, a series of patterns of sounds?
Surely most compositions are meaningful arrangements of sounds, and listeners (well, me anyway) seek meaning in those arrangements? That doesn't mean invariably thinking of a programme or sentiment, but simply trying to be attentive to what the composer has sought to convey.

I think there is a big difference with song forms which is one reason why the word "song" has become a synonym for music, people find it hard to talk about music (The sound it makes) so its easy to talk about words and their meanings

I'm not sure that what the "composer has sought to convey" is the 'best' way of approaching music.............. What I love about music , in all its forms , is that its NOT linguistic, it's not "about" things that are better expressed in words. For me I find many texts that have been set to music , often by great composers, to be superficial and far to mundane in comparison with the SOUND of music.
I guess some of this comes down to whether one believes that language (in the form of text) creates meaning or whether one can have profound things that are completely extraliguistic (such as music)

[Chris Newman]

Originally Posted by Caliban
mais bien évidemment....

The France-Musique 'critics forum' programme (now called for reasons which elude all rational people, "Le Jardin des Critiques") considered the piece a couple of weeks ago.

The two recordings which emerged on top were by Les siècles, under François-Xavier Roth (2009, Musicales Actes Sud) and the Thomas Beecham performance with the Orchestre national de l'ORTF in 1959 for EMI.

With commendable lack of chauvinism, they chose Beecham as the best of the best, for its sheer vigour and style and hallucinatory brilliance, relegating their compatriot because the orchestra, ophicleides and all no doubt, just didn't have the 'oooomph'. I actually loved the grainy, woody, visceral sounds of Les siècles...

A monstrously exciting performance. In my dreams (pardons, Mesdames et Messieurs....réveries) the icing on the cake at Le Bal would be if the engineers emulated what they did with a missing horn part in John Barbirolli's Mahler 5 and returned to the Salle Wagram and recorded the cornet part.

[amateur51]

I think there is a big difference with song forms which is one reason why the word "song" has become a synonym for music, people find it hard to talk about music (The sound it makes) so its easy to talk about words and their meanings

I'm not sure that what the "composer has sought to convey" is the 'best' way of approaching music.............. What I love about music , in all its forms , is that its NOT linguistic, it's not "about" things that are better expressed in words. For me I find many texts that have been set to music , often by great composers, to be superficial and far to mundane in comparison with the SOUND of music.
I guess some of this comes down to whether one believes that language (in the form of text) creates meaning or whether one can have profound things that are completely extraliguistic (such as music)

Just to add a bit of spice to this controversy, if you watched the Rostropovich film (still on the iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._of_the_Cello/ ) you would hear that Lutoslawski wrote his cello concerto commissioned by the cellist in just that descriptive way - it is 'about' Rostropovich and his situation in its intent & motivation - and yet it is still clearly 'abstract' music.

[MrGongGong]

Just to add a bit of spice to this controversy, if you watched the Rostropovich film (still on the iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._of_the_Cello/ ) you would hear that Lutoslawski wrote his cello concerto commissioned by the cellist in just that descriptive way - it is 'about' Rostropovich and his situation in its intent & motivation - and yet it is still clearly 'abstract' music.

Many artists use "models" to structure their works. I remember a conversation I had with Peter Maxwell Davies when he was writing the set of string quartets for the Magginis where he said that the music was all "about" specific things to do with living in Orkney, particular storms, walks etc BUT that this was simply a way of articulating the music (I think he talked about this a bit also on the BBC4 film that was on earlier this year ?)

I've also worked with choreographers who make work that , to the audience, is purely "abstract" yet the dancers will have a narrative thread that enables them to remember what comes next (Elephants then fish then falling trees etc) but the work its itself is not "about" elephants etc etc

[aeolium]

Yes, am51 - the sounds in that Lutoslawski example are 'about' something, they can't ever be just sounds, and you have interpreted the extralinguistic sounds using linguistic concepts presumably because it is hard for us to escape from language in the way that we think about music (not necessarily in the process of listening to it).

It's a fascinating subject - but getting rather OT for this Berlioz discussion

[Biffo]

The point I was trying to make was that Berlioz only mentions the bells in his Memoirs when they were NOT available (along with the harp and occasionally the cor anglais). Even if they had never been used in a symphony before they may well have been used in an opera or other theatrical production. The bell tolls one o'clock (practically inaudible in the Kleiber recording) at the end of the 'Wolf's Glen' scene in Der Freischutz. Freischutz was performed in Paris (in a mangled form) in 1825/6 and Berlioz heard it and studied the score of the authentic version. I am sure Weber isn't the first to use bells. The orchestra for the first aborted performance was mainly drawn from theatre orchestras, I'm not sure about the premiere itself or the premiere of the revised version after Berlioz' return from Rome. Neither Barzun or Cairns mention any problem with bells.

Distrust of programmes goes back a long way, reviewing the SF, Schumann wrote 'This sort of prospectus is always somewhat unworthy; it smacks too much of the charlatan....But Berlioz was addressing himself to the French public, with whom reserve is not the way to succeed'.

[amateur51]

Yes, am51 - the sounds in that Lutoslawski example are 'about' something, they can't ever be just sounds, and you have interpreted the extralinguistic sounds using linguistic concepts presumably because it is hard for us to escape from language in the way that we think about music (not necessarily in the process of listening to it).

It's a fascinating subject - but getting rather OT for this Berlioz discussion

Agreed aeolium but I was led there by the composer - he was quite explicit it, almost shockingly so.

[vinteuil]

.

Distrust of programmes goes back a long way, reviewing the SF, Schumann wrote 'This sort of prospectus is always somewhat unworthy; it smacks too much of the charlatan....But Berlioz was addressing himself to the French public, with whom reserve is not the way to succeed'.

Biffo - many thanks for the quote - lovely...