Prom 31 - 8.08.17: Berlioz – The Damnation of Faust

[Darkbloom]

Actually, the Leech, Cachemaille recording was with Dutoit and the Montreal SO

Oops!

Memory playing tricks. I was convinced it was JEG.

[bluestateprommer]

This should be very good!!

Based on Parts I & II, this performance is very good indeed. Maybe a touch of hamminess from Laurent Naouri in places is the one mild blot. Good to hear Christopher Cook back on the air as the interval host.

[BBMmk2]

Based on Parts I & II, this performance is very good indeed. Maybe a touch of hamminess from Laurent Naouri in places is the one mild blot. Good to hear Christopher Cook back on the air as the interval host.

Very good interval. These Prom Intervals, certainly have ben very interesting.

So far, this Prom has been very enjoyable. Tempi are just about right, not rushed and plenty of time for the musicians to grasp their parts.

[teamsaint]

Post of the day to BBM, without a shadow of a doubt.


Ahem , sorry. Anyway, enjoyed the Prom,. lots of great dramatic touches. Wish I had been there. Some excellent singing.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Post of the day to BBM, without a shadow of a doubt.

Picture of Musician grasping his parts -

(Well - I liked being in the Fourth Form!)

[Goon525]

Not knowing the work at all, and being somewhat allergic to quite a bit of Berlioz, I enjoyed this hugely. Both male soloists were excellent, though I thought Ann Hallenberg a touch shrill (my wife disagrees). Wonderful sound on the FLAC feed again, though as seems to be the norm this year, soloists placed well in front of the orchestra. I was a little dubious about devoting a long evening to this work, but I'm very glad I did.

[teamsaint]

Not knowing the work at all, and being somewhat allergic to quite a bit of Berlioz, I enjoyed this hugely. Both male soloists were excellent, though I thought Ann Hallenberg a touch shrill (my wife disagrees). Wonderful sound on the FLAC feed again, though as seems to be the norm this year, soloists placed well in front of the orchestra. I was a little dubious about devoting a long evening to this work, but I'm very glad I did.

To me it just sounded as if the microphone was too close.

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 31. BERLIOZ DAMNATION OF FAUST. ORR/MVC/JEG ETC. RADIO 3 CONCERT SOUND.

The usual, admirable JEG characteristics were abundant as ever - superb clarity of line and texture, of voices against instruments; lean and flexible orchestral sound, sharply responsive, wide dynamic range; clear water-colour winds and brilliant, penetrating brass.

But I couldn’t help feeling that, in Parts Three and Four especially, it was all rather cool, emotionally, the drama objectively observed rather than keenly felt. Given the largely moderate-to-slow pace of the work and its episodic nature, and some rather moderate tempi in the performance itself, I felt the lack of some more overt expression of the life-and-death, love and sacrifice, damnation-and-redemption human extremes the story represents. Listening to the JEG’s rather laid-back will-o-the-wisps, I found myself playing a sharper, snappier version in my head; JEG’s weren’t very devilish, nor even very mischievous. In the trio ending Part Three I wanted more intense contrasts in the conflict of the lovers' doomed fantasy and the devil's wicked, relishing anticipation; in short, greater intensity.

Parts One and Two came across very well - the glories of pure nature, naive peasants, drunken, sentimental students; sharply-characterised devil-faust dialogue; the world tour of the pleasures of the senses; vividly individual wind voices, snappy, snarling brass.
Part Two has several very rhapsodic arias about love and its anticipation, devotion unto death, a grander, tragic vision of nature; I wanted them to soar more than they did here, to agonise and to yearn; could have done with a more enlivening ebb and flow of phrase and micro dynamics.
Perhaps its simply that the piece doesn’t suit JEG’s approach so well as, say the Roméo et Juliette last year, so much more mobile and rhythmical a work as it is. For similar reasons I don’t enjoy his Schumann and Brahms Symphonies half so much as his later Beethoven and Mendelssohn live tapings. He seems less happy conveying Brahmsian passion, rhapsody and romance; or Schumann's psychodramas, tending to attempt a more analytical relation to earlier Classical or Baroque precedents. It can become a little too formal & objective.

The Concert Sound webcast was - spacious, 3D, very naturally dynamic, and for this frequently vocal-averse listener, easy on the ears. A treat.

[edashtav]

I wasn't going to write about this performance as my attention was not fully engaged. I agree with much of what you've written, Jayne, but question whether you've been fair in attributing so many of your criticisms to Eliot Gardiner's conducting. Berlioz posed as the full-blown, larger than life romantic but I feel his Damnation of Faust draws more of the picturesque aspects of romanticism than full-on drama. It is no accident that the story wanders off to Hungary, colour and detail are more important than coherent story-telling. And... what a lovely job Gardiner did on those transitory details. Has the Hungarian March ever been better phrased, or characterised with more lovely instrumental detail, I wonder? The work sprawls, it lacks dramatic thrust and intellectual coherence. Its beauties are incidental and Eliot Gardiner burnished these wonderfully well last night. Berlioz was a genius but a flawed one. It's his fault that Damnation of Faust ends with a whimper and not a bang. Berlioz's Dreams of Faust prepared the ground for the journeyman, Charles Gounod, to reap a rare harvest.

[Rolmill]

I was at this concert and for me JEG et al gave a dramatic and colourful performance, though (probably for the reason's edashtav has articulated far better than I could) I felt it was less effective in the third part than the others. The dramatic impact was assisted by visual aspects (some 'stage' movement and gesticulation), so maybe you had to be there!

The soloists were all good, Spyres in particular, though Naouri's voice sounded a little worn at times; I didn't find Hallenberg shrill at all (so maybe ts is right to blame microphone placement). I was in the Choir seats, so can't really comment on the balance (soloists facing away), but this was a great position to appreciate the excellent work from all of the choirs and from Ashley Riches. The OAE produced some ravishing sounds, and a couple of botched entries didn't significantly diminish a very enjoyable evening.