"... no matter how many Fantastiques you have in your collection, this is one you should not be without ..."
Jerry Dubbins - Fanfare - March/April 2013
Recording of the Month
"...anyone buying this CD will be buying it for the Symphonie Fantastique. This is a natural, sophisticated, glowing performance captured in the finest sound I’ve ever heard given to the work. It’s one of the best versions now available and at bargain price it must not be overlooked. I struggle to think of a version that offers better playing. An absolute winner."
John Whitmore - MusicWeb-International.com - January 2013
"...this is quite simply one of the best performances of the Symphonic fantastique on disc. The orchestral playing is always precise, clear, perfectly balanced…The trombone pedals and the bass drum in the March to the scaffold are right in-your-face as Berlioz clearly intended—and we get all the repeats he wanted. The harps in the Ball scene sparkle and glitter and the notorious wind glissandi at the beginning of the last movement ... smear their way across the page as the composer asks.The disc opens with a brisk performance of the overture The corsair…very precise string playing in the difficult opening flourishes ... The recording is clean, natural and enables us to hear everything."
Paul Corfield Godfrey - MusicWeb-International.com - October 2012
"...A spirited Le corsaire leads off this impressive Berlioz collection from Lyon, an admirable debut disc from the excellent Orchestre National of that city and its recently appointed music director, Leonard Slatkin. From the get-go, Slatkin leads a performance of this overture that mixes discipline, spontaneity, tenderness and drive, with detail and expression never compromised; the coda is a fine blaze of sound captured in what appears to be a spacious, warm and vivid concert hall. As well as French polish, the timbres that radiate from the Lyon musicians are welcome for being recognisable in geographical terms: Slatkin has always encouraged orchestras to sport their national identities..."
Greg Harvey - Classicalsource.com -September 2012
"...The playing is remarkably refined, from an orchestra which has a strong tradition in Berlioz. String playing is cultured, catching the yearning in the first movement and an appropriate glassy quality in the finale..."
Mark Pullinger - International Record Review - September 2012
Music ***½ (Good/Very Good) Sound *** (Good)
Andreas Friesenhagen - Fono Forum magazine - January 2013
****
Remy Franck - Pizzicato magazine - November 2012
No User Reviews Found.
