Streaming the Classics: Berlioz—Roméo et Juliette
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
Here are 10 recordings of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette Dramatic Symphony found on Tidal and/or Qobuz; I will list them below, no hierarchy intended. At the end of the review, with some necessary historical background offered to assist the audiophile, I’ll select 3 recordings that stand out for this reviewer.
1. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, London Symphony Chorus, Guildhall School Singers—Olga Borodina, Kenneth Tarver, Evgeny Nikitin
2. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis, BBC Symphony Chorus—Michele Losier, Samuel Boden and David Soar
3. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, Pierre Boulez—Melanie Diener, Kenneth Tarver, Denis Sedov
4. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Philadelphia Orchestra and Westminster Chorus, Riccardo Muti—Jessye Norman, John Aler, Simon Estes
5. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Orchestre National de Lyon, Leonard Slatkin, Choeurs et Solistes de Lyon-Bernard Tétu—Marion Lebegue, Julian Behr, Frederic Caton
6. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit, Ensemble Vocal Tudor de Montreal—Florence Quivar, Alberto Cupido, Tom Krause
7. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Michael Tilson Thomas—Sasha Cooke, Nicholas Phan, Lucas Pisaroni
8. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Orchestre de Paris, Choeur de Paris, Daniel Barenboim—Yvonne Minton, Francisco Araiza, Jules Bastin
9. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony Orchestra Chorus—Gladys Swarthout, John Garris, Nicola Moscona
10. Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette by Boston Symphony Orchestra, New England Conservatory Chorus, Charles Munch—Rosalind Elias, Cesare Valletti, Giorgio Tozzi
In the Bibliothèque de Paris, there is a very special manuscript of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, dated January 1860, with the following inscription:
Au grand et cher auteur de
Roméo et Juliette
l’auteur reconnaissant de
Tristan et Isolde
‘To the dear and great composer of
”Roméo and Juliet,”
the grateful composer of
“Tristan and Isolde.”’
Considering the monumentality of Wagner’s self-assurance, this is an extraordinary statement, a rare homage that gives us insight into the unique power of Berlioz’s music and his influence on Wagner and his contemporaries. In his memoirs—Mein Leben—Wagner makes it clear after hearing one of the first performances of Roméo et Juliette, in Paris in 1839, how revelatory the experience was:
“This was a wholly new world for me…the grandeur and masterly execution of the orchestral part almost overwhelmed me…I was simply all ears for things of which ‘till then I had never dreamt, and which I felt I must try to realize…. At that time I felt almost like a little schoolboy by the side of Berlioz.”
So, what was this grandeur that Berlioz’s contemporaries heard? In part, no doubt, the technical brilliance of Berlioz’s orchestration. His orchestra and his means of composing for the orchestra—not hampered by the sustain pedal of a piano, an instrument he never learned to play—had an awe-inspiring effect on both audiences and many of the early Romantic and Neo-Romantic composers of the post 1850 period, of which Wagner was, certainly, the major force. In part, Wagner also heard music from within the French tradition synthesized at the highest level. More on that later!
But there was also something else Wagner heard that he, no doubt, understood later. He was hearing the logical outcome of the influence of two profound masters on Berlioz and the early Romantics—Beethoven and Shakespeare. Berlioz birthed into existence a unique French musical tradition with Beethoven and Shakespeare as guiding lights; filtered through his Gallic eye, an eye and mind endowed with a deep intellectual curiosity, eccentricity and brilliance; blessed with a profound musical ability and finally, all of this stoked at high temperatures in a mercurial, indefatigable, never compromising personality. This is what Wagner heard in 1839, whilst he was still writing, no offence, paltry ditties!
One can see in Berlioz’s output the profound influence of Shakespeare, not just in the work under review. That first revelatory encounter with Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress and Shakespeare’s two tragedies, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, given in Paris in September 1827, is well known. But what is little known is what Shakespeare’s works offered young French intellectuals. Shakespeare became the great revolutionary symbol of freedom of expression that the young Romantics were looking for, a literary force that blew apart “the rigidity and life-defying formalism of the academic French classical orthodoxy” and challenged the establishment’s notion that ideas must be subjugated to form. Shakespeare’s plays proved that ideas could create their own form. Instead of proportion and the classical unities of time, place and action, the bard, as Andrew Huth has pointed out, created “wide expanses of time and place, strange subplots…a wide range of human behavior, from the most passionate love to the vilest cruelty, from the sharpest wit to the most complacent stupidity.” This is what Shakespeare represented to the young Romantics. And it takes very little imagination to realize what this meant for the fertile mind of Berlioz. Form no longer dictated ideas, but ideas and their musical significance dictated form. And to those who could not recognize this, one only had to look to Beethoven’s final symphony to see how this could be applied to the symphonic tradition.
This Shakespearean influence with Beethoven’s audacious innovation in the last movement of his final symphony is crucial to understanding how Berlioz conceived and wrote his music. And now we can see how a work that was neither completely symphonic as understood by the Austrian/German masters, nor operatic in nature, could, in Berlioz’s mind, use a synthesis of Shakespeare’s play Romeo et Juliette and the daring of a Beethoven symphony with chorus and vocal soloists to logically arrive at an extraordinary hybrid: the Roméo et Juliette Symphonie Dramatique. Richard Strauss’s quip that Berlioz’s music “was not dramatic enough for the stage, and not symphonic enough for the concert hall,” misses the mark and betrays, even by the end of the 19th century, a certain Germanic conformity of mind that was, simply, not Berlioz’s mind.
Fortune favours the bold and maybe this moment in history with the confluence of Shakespeare and Beethoven fermenting in a Gallic mind is just one more example of this, but were it not for the largesse of the rock-like, cult musician, Nicolo Paganini, Roméo et Juliette might never have been composed. After denigrating Berlioz’s Harold in Italy for its staid and understated viola part—a piece Paganini himself commissioned from Berlioz to highlight the acquisition of his venerable new viola—Paganini finally heard the work performed in December of 1838. He was so overwhelmed and impressed with Berlioz’s creation he pronounced Berlioz the only true heir to Beethoven and presented him with a gift of 20,000 francs. This amount of money, at least twice what he would make in a year through his writings, allowed Berlioz to dedicate himself exclusively to the new composition. So, with this stroke of good fortune, Berlioz began work on the dramatic symphony and dedicated the completed Roméo et Juliette to his benefactor, Nicolo Paganini, on September 8th, 1839.
Let’s now have a look at the outline of the piece, recognizing this writer cannot give a detailed description of each section, or this review would transcend its intended purpose.
The work is written for an orchestra of 100 and a chorus of equal size. The chorus is divided into 2, with 50 choristers each representing one of the two warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Of the 100-strong chorus, 14 of the voices are used in the ‘Prologue’ to set the stage for the coming exposition. There are 3 soloists, none of which represent Roméo or Juliet.
Ah, and here we come to the oh-so interesting Berliozian innovation. Two-thirds of the score is purely instrumental, permitting the choral setting with text to “…prepare the mind of the audience for the dramatic scenes;” but it is the orchestra that exploits and develops the feelings and passions of the heretofore expository text. Berlioz’s reasoning was clear on this point. Give an idea, a human emotion to the orchestra, and you have the “ineffable.” You have the “unaussprechlichen”, the “unutterable”, the power to suggest an infinity of emotional connections that even transcends, on occasion, a wordsmith like Shakespeare.
In addition to this unique role of the orchestra, Berlioz gave descriptive labels to his 7 movements, and we will outline them in just a moment, but he made no effort to tell the entire story of Shakespeare’s original play. Roméo et Juliette was the composer’s very personal musical/poetic response to Shakespeare’s play, brought to, if one can say, a deeper meaning through his orchestra. If one keeps this notion in mind, one can begin to understand its refreshing unconventionality. Yes, it is based on Shakespeare’s play, but it is wrought through the prism of a unique composer whose aim was to make known to his audience “…the sum of passion that is in the play.” For those who are searching for familiar musical forms and signposts in order to understand Berlioz’s music, they will be lost and perhaps even irritated. For those who are willing to enter into the deliciously chimeric and daring expressions within the overall piece, they will be rewarded over and over again.
Here is a brief breakdown of the 7 sections of the piece; novelty reigns supreme:
1) Introduction: Fighting—Tumult—Intervention of the Prince; Prologue: Choral Recitative, Strophes, Recitative and Scherzetto
2) Romeo Alone: Sadness—Distant Sounds of Dancing and Music—Festivities at the Capulets
3) Love Scene: Serene Night—The Capulet’s Garden, Silent and Deserted—The Young Capulets Pass on their way Home Singing Snatches of the Music of the Ball—Love Scene
4) Queen Mab, the Dream Fairy (scherzo)
5) Juliet’s Funeral Cortege
6) Roméo at the Capulet’s Tomb: Invocation—Juliet’s Awakening—Frenzied Joy, Despair, Final Agonies and Death of the Two Lovers
7) Finale: The Crowd Rushes to the Cemetery—Brawl Between the Montagues and Capulets—Friar Lawrence’s Recitative and Aria—Oath of Reconciliation
I’d like to offer some details of just one section of this piece and then we will get right to these fine recordings.
The ‘Introduction’ portrays musically the tense atmosphere of the two warring families in a fugal figure begun in the strings in the key of b minor, agitated, aggressive and fast, following no traditional method of tonal movement. For Berlioz, who was taught in the French method by Anton Reicha and Francois Leseur, this opening fugato is entirely successful, as long as one does not look at it through the lens of The Well-Tempered Clavier. It’s non-formal logic creates the necessary agitated atmosphere that leads to the lower brass unison recitative; an infuriated Prince insists on the two families cease their hostilities immediately and this marvelous recitative for brass represents his authority and voice. (Berlioz’s brass recitative is a gesture of acknowledgement to Beethoven’s use of instrumental recitative in the final movement of his Symphony No. 9).
What follows is a small sub-choir summarizing the story up to the lovers’ meeting, in a homophonic, generally a capella declamatory style. There are but a few harp and orchestral moments of support during the opening declaration but within this choral recitative section, two major themes are announced by our choir and orchestra that will return over the following 90 minutes.
Then, in a quintessential Berliozian moment, the next approximately 7 minutes of this dramatic opening is a “Strophe” sung by a mezzo-soprano extolling and praising love. Berlioz’s melody and accompaniment are beautiful—ravishingly so. But, the momentum seems to grind to a halt. Does this help to move the musical plot forward? No! Is there a point to this chanson? Yes, but here we have to acknowledge a profound compositional difference between Beethoven/Wagner and Berlioz that may be of some assistance to the listener.
In a real sense, Berlioz’s music presents itself as a manifestation of the ‘present’ moment. What do I mean? The German/Austrian school of music, with Wagner and Beethoven as the key representatives, compose to a large degree with themes that can be reduced to motives that are developed, expanded, restated and temporarily varied in order to present themselves later in a grand recapitulation. This produces in the listener a type of ‘delayed gratification’ whereby we await a climax to the unfolding and the craftsmanship of the composer’s workings-out of this cellular motivic material. It would be inaccurate to state categorically that Berlioz never employs this form of writing, but he will characteristically present the listener with a complete and separate ‘sound’ that he asks us to listen to, for its own sake. The chanson for the mezzo-soprano points to no future point in the music, no grand resolution musically, only textually, and Berlioz asks us to stop our forward motion-like hearing and listen to the beauty and colour of the moment—in Berlioz’s eyes this paean to ‘love’ requires no further justification. This can be frustrating even if you have heard this work many times, but this is the lyric rather than the symphonic method of composition.
Now, let’s briefly return to the Introduction. After the ‘chanson’ there is a call-and-response between tenor and chorus portraying Mab, the Fairy Queen, a delightful quixotic bit of writing. After finishing, the chorus returns alone to conclude the ‘Introduction’ in a musical atmosphere of elegiac doom pre ordaining the death of the beautiful young lovers and ultimate reconciliation for the Capulets and Montagues. So ends this first section and upon multiple listenings we can discern the ‘Introduction’ as a kind of micro rendering of Shakespeare’s play that Berlioz’s orchestral music will now express better than any other medium could possibly do. Now, let’s go to the music.
The first full recording of the Roméo et Juliette Symphonie comes from a conductor who, as he aged, was not known for pioneering unique repertoire, Arturo Toscanini. In 1942, he gave the first North American performance of the full work in New York with the NBC Symphony Orchestra and then again in 1947. But only in 1965 was the whole performance of the 1947 studio recording released by RCA. This performance remains a landmark in the history of the 20th century for every fan of Berlioz’s music. The sound is typical of all Toscanini’s studio recordings—lacking forgiving and warming resonance. However, Toscanini creates a performance where he steps back and allows the music to speak for itself. No idiosyncratic gestures here, only Berlioz in all his subtlety, his honest sensitivity and power. The NBC orchestra avails itself at the highest level and interprets the French master amazingly well, considering there was almost no tradition of playing Berlioz’s music in North America at this time, save the Symphonie Fantastique. But the final accolade must go to Nicola Monscona the bass/baritone for his role as Friar Laurence, the dramatic finale of Berlioz’s work.
Our mothers always taught us that first impressions were, ultimately, a game changer. And who am I to disagree with our moms—the opening fugato, its precision, its syncopations and even whether the Brass recitative is nuanced, as a singer might sing the Prince’s oration, all of these aspects of any performance are important to me. But if the great reconciliation as delivered by the Good Father at the end of Berlioz’s work is not delivered by ‘a Voice’ as the earthly representative of God Almighty, the final impression can be seriously muted. Monscona delivers a gold standard, here! Are there others in this pantheon of voices? To be sure, but Monscona set the standard immediately with this 1947 performance. It is his voice that acts as the ethical north star which finally brings peace and reconciliation to the families.
‘Dans votre seul souvenir’, ‘thanks to your memory alone’—Berlioz writes a high Eb for the Friar as he begins this beautiful subsection within this peroration where the Priest begins with “Poor children for whom I weep, Cut down together before their day, On your dark abode, Posterity will weep; And in history, though unbelieving, Verona will live, Thanks to your memory alone.” A beautiful asymmetrical melody, so typical of Berlioz, and so many Basses lose their power on the high Eb—not Monscona. This whole section is beautiful and then it’s vigorously interrupted, as if the Friar has been lost in a sea of melancholy only to regain the sober awareness of the devastation that lay before him. “Where are they now, those fierce enemies—Capulets, Montagues, Come, see, make sure! With hatred in your hearts, defiance on your tongue, Come close barbarians to these lovers in death: God smites your bleeding hearts (Dieu vous punit dans vos tendresses) Moscona spits ‘punit’—’smites’—through his teeth in this passage as if the depth of his anger originates from beyond. Truly memorable! This puts him in the pantheon of the best and it is by this standard that I judge every other Friar Laurence. Toscanini and Monscona deserve pride of place for a landmark performance and, therefore, is placed in my top 3 recordings of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette.
Charles Munch, the first to record almost all of the major works of Berlioz, made 2 recordings of the Roméo et Juliette Symphonie, one in 1953 and again in 1962, both with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and for RCA. Although these performances are very similar, the 1962 is the performance that is generally regarded as the more attractive for its obvious generous stereo sound.
Let me begin by making just a few comments about the mono version of 1953. The orchestral playing of the Boston symphony is brilliant, forward and exquisitely bright in sound, so wonderful and typical of the 1961 recording also. An interesting surprise is the small choir in the prologue and their precise and marcato style of singing syllabically in this declamatory section. Even if you are not a French speaker the words are intensely clear, and refreshing to hear so sung rather than rounded into some homogenous mush. However, in some areas, as in the tenor and chorus call-and-response section in the Introduction when the tenor, acting as Mercutio sings of Mab the Fairy Queen, the choir’s 3 part harmony is somewhat tentative and lacks a professional precision. It seems the Harvard Glee Club choir and Radcliffe Choral Society, high quality and long revered amateur choirs, required just a few more sectionals.
Munch’s deliverance of Part 6 Roméo en tombeau is brilliant, aggressive, bristling with fantastic precision in the brass and strings. I can hear Toscanini screaming ‘sec’ at the top of his lungs. I don’t know whether Munch heard the Italian conductor in rehearsal; if he didn’t they both still had that older concept of precision, a special precision that maintains tuning, tonal colour, but brings a “brightness” to the playing and ‘crispness’ that is centred in the forwardness of the brass section.
The 1961 recording in the Soria Series is a handsome and warm sound benefitting from the quality of the stereo sound. Munch takes the fugato section slower than his 1953 version; there are sections that seem slightly more deliberate but the Brass are still strong and giving evidence of a better blend, a clear result of the stereo recording. The New England Conservatory Chorus has the same admirable clear declamatory sound in the ‘Introduction’ but is more secure in balancing harmony. Munch has the legendary Rosalind Elias sing the enchanting and beautiful “Strophes” to love in the introduction—a superb pick. And how her voice captures us in its sheer beauty. If you are going to halt the momentum of the musical plot, you best have a voice that personifies in sound the metaphysical beauty of love itself—she is this manifestation.
The ‘Roméo Seul’ section, or Part 2 of the piece, is entirely orchestral as it depicts Roméo’s isolation, and as the piece progresses, off in the distance, one can hear faintly the beginnings of merriment and then the full blown bacchanalian joy of the ‘Capulet’s Festivities’. This entire orchestral movement must have blown Wagner away, and, of course, we know it did. For the unison violin melody at the beginning of this section is both famous and stunningly infamous. Its chromaticism is still breathtaking to hear, but one never loses sense of the overall tonality of this opening. It’s apparent “meandering” nature reveals a solitary pensiveness that captures Romeo’s isolation perfectly. A very small observation: Berlioz marks the beginning of this section as ppp in the violins, a very difficult dynamic level to achieve in one section of the orchestra. Boulez gives us, with the Cleveland Orchestra, a closer ppp than Munch but allows more scrape than sound. Munch prefers slightly more volume and a fuller sound, yet still intimate in nature. I lean toward Munch’s dynamic control here.
The apex of this movement is the combination of two major themes, the first reflective melody hinted at rehearsal bar 16, an oboe and clarinet melody, long and liquid; and the full festive rhythmically diverse “Festival Theme” first announced at 3 bars after 20. These two themes are then cleverly combined at 6 bars after rehearsal 24. Musically and programmatically very clever! The Boston group is so full blooded in their playing, so ample, so strong, their virtuosity for music as Berlioz’s, so deeply appealing. Here, beginning with the “Capulet Festival” back at rehearsal section 20 Munch is slower than most conductors. But by slowing the tempo of this section, the Festive theme and its accompaniment become infinitely more transparent, yet he is able to get a power out of the orchestra that to my ears is the highest standard of playing.
Allow me to say a brief word on behalf of Giorgio Tozzi, our good Father, the bass/baritone, whose final peroration finally brings reconciliation between the warring families. Tozzi’s voice and his performance on this recording are extraordinary and must be placed in the high hall of Friar Laurences with Monscona. High Ebs are full blooded, revealing a range full of life from that Eb to the low A in the bass clef. He takes fewer liberties with the text, but even outdoes Monscona in this one moment when he sings “Faut il que votre rage en ces lieux se déchai-ne”. Translation: “How can you vent your rage in such a spot.” The verb “déchaine”, meaning “to rage,” Tozzi delivers with a disdain that can only come from a peacemaker brought to the limits of his patience, witnessing the pitiless bodies before him and the bitterness of the families still inflamed. The power and strength of voice with range galore and an intelligence brought to the text, places Tozzi in my top 3; the archetypal goddess of love heard from Rosalinde Elia and with Charles Munch and the remarkable Boston Symphony Orchestra recording of 1962 must be considered in the top 3 of all recordings of the Roméo et Juliette.
Before I get to my final choice of recordings, let me make a few observations of the strengths of just a few of the other recordings.
Barenboim’s recording with the Orchestre de Paris is very strong. The Paris orchestra plays with technical élan and with a generous, beautiful sound. The lower Brass, as the Prince’s recitative in the ‘Introduction’, is beautifully in tune and sonorous, emanating from experienced lower brass players. There is no nuancing to the Brass recitative that one hears in John Eliot Gardiner’s recording, but still robust and authoritative. Roméo seul is gorgeous with a ppp that is more like Maestro Munch’s full tone, yet with an even more liquid sound—bowing uniform and resplendent. But Munch, again, has greater directionality in the phrasing, mini-crescendos and mini-diminuendos are impressive. One area of the Paris orchestra that I very much appreciate is its warmth and dark tone that Barenboim gets out of them. There are small transitions sections that Berlioz writes just for viola and cello and their sound is a deep chocolate glow. Wonderful.
Barenboim’s ‘Capulet Festivities’ section is as slow as Munch’s but does not have the vibrant punch that Munch brings forth. Once again, listen to the midsection and the forward playing and precision of the Brass players work some of Berlioz’s rhythms; Munch gives them an arena to be heard and their “animus” becomes vibrant. Barenboim places them in the distant background and loses, for me, the rhythmic vitality that lies at the heart of Berlioz. Finally, Jules Bastin is Friar Laurence in the great closing of Berlioz’s piece and for me his voice lacks authority. As I have mentioned many times, we must believe this priest acts as the intermediary between man and God, and in our fictional world of Berlioz’s music, the only way to do that is through the voice. No voice, no “cred.” Disappointing, really.
Gergiev’s recording with the London Symphony Orchestra has some beautiful ensemble moments. The LSO is a very fine orchestra with a beautiful ensemble sound with some outstanding players in every section—and yet! Gergiev’s performance, although competent, is devoid of any moments of “awe.” In fact, there are just too many performances of Gergiev’s that I feel a sense of having listened to something that is fine—but no more. This is one of them. I know the LSO has its own sound. But I can’t help but think that a different conductor who has a vision of the details of the score could have pulled more from the orchestra. The section I keep talking about—Roméo seul—beginning with that famous 1st violin chromatic line, that some suggest, influenced Wagner’s opening of the ‘Prelude’ to Tristan und Isolde, has some absolutely “funky” rhythmically stunning sections later in the ‘Capulet Festivities’ section that are without competition in orchestral writing in the early 19th century. I’m talking about 10 bars after rehearsal number 21 where there is a triplet in all of the bottom strings and bassoons followed by a dotted half note and a bouncy eighth note figure against a woodwind section in arpeggiated eighth notes, going through a short circle of fifths, with strings running up a scale passage—thoroughly and wonderfully rhythmically aggressive. Funk in the early 19th century! (I jest.) But, this is rounded off into a homogenous sound that simply—is there. No, special attention, no vibrancy. The musicians play well, but their powder is dry.
I’m also sorry to say that Friar Laurence sung by Evegny Nitikin is another disappointment. There is something in his voice that does not square with me, a certain timbre when he sings without vibrato that is an irritant. There is also a certain placement of his voice within the recording that makes him sound modestly “distant” and I am not referring to the grand ending where orchestra, chorus and Bass sing “Jurez donc par l’auguste symbole.” There are no moments where Nitikin uses the text to launch real outrage, or compassion, or divine pity, or much of anything. He sings it competently, but that’s about it.
My final 3rd choice recording is Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. They offer a technically flawless and sparkling performance on Decca. Small details abound that leave the listener stunningly impressed and always asking why other conductors don’t do that. There are 6, open 5th, quarter note trombone ‘chords’ that lead to an F# diminished chord that shortly leads to the bottom brass ‘recitative’.
I was taught as a young musician that repeated notes almost always require a small crescendo to give the listener that sense of direction. Dutoit asks his trombones to do just that and the effect is very impressive; if that wasn’t enough, his lower brass performs a nuanced, profoundly musical job of the Prince’s recitative. There are phrases that Dutoit dovetails to a mf and mp that are not marked in the score, but a good musician might do just that, and again, very impressive. Why don’t other conductors do that? Another detail that must be highlighted about Montreal’s performance and that’s their attention to the expanse of dynamics. Berlioz has dynamics from ppp up to ff in the score. In my earlier top 2 picks, one must say that this type of attention to the range of dynamics is often not there in the Munch and Toscanini recordings. However, it is here with Dutoit. There is a gorgeous spot in the finale that begins with Friar Laurence’s “Swear by this ancient symbol…” Where the 100 strong chorus representing the two warring families join the good Father in the same text and melody, just a little further in, the full chorus sings “…that henceforth friendship’s bonds unite us forever.” The rhythm in the chorus becomes longer and the soprano line more ascendant, leading to a pp where Friar Laurence sings “…and you shall foster love’ and the choir echoes back this healing sentiment. This is the first recording one can hear as clear as a bell, Friar Laurence’s melodic line “…and you shall foster love.” Is this a big deal? You bet! It’s not just that Dutoit is paying attention to the score; it’s why Berlioz put the pp there in the first place! The harmonic movement fits the text like a glove and to have the Priest’s words clearly echoed back from the chorus, which represents the once warring families, is music’s supreme gift to the text. No matter what actor you would want to pick, these words have an import now with the music and its powerful whispering dynamic, that no actor, no Lawrence Olivier, could recreate. This is the power of music. Bravo to Dutoit!
I was prepared to be disappointed with Dutoit’s Bass/Baritone, Thomas Krause, not because I knew his work, but because I had a sinking feeling after hearing Dutoit’s pick for Aeneas in his recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens that there may be a pattern—great orchestra, shy on vocalists. After you have heard Jon Vickers sing Aeneas with Sir Colin Davis, everyone else is—Beaujolais. So, what about Krause? Better than I expected. A smaller voice than Tozzi, but this recording serves him very well. No great manipulation of text; no fury, no wonderful exaggeration of key words that are memorable, but a solid performance that works with Dutoit’s impeccable balancing of the Ensemble Tudor de Montreal, a fine chorus, the orchestra and Krause. He carries enough of the day to make this an absolute go-to recording to have.
Dear reader, thanks for sticking with me this far. There are 2 important recordings, however, that are not available for streaming on Tidal or Qobuz that should be. One, is Sir Colin Davis’s 1993 recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, not the London Symphony Orchestra, with Olga Borodina, Thomas Moser and the wonderful Alastair Miles; and John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of 1995 with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, his fantastic Monteverdi Choir and Catherine Robbin, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt and Gilles Cachemaille. If you were to put Toscanini’s, Munch’s 1961 recording, Dutoit and the above mentioned recordings from Gardiner and Davis, you would have the high Olympic series of the Roméo et Juliette Symphonie Dramatique. When Tidal/Qobuz incorporates these two recordings I will come back and do a detailed review of these extraordinary and formidable recordings for you. For the time being, please consider listening to this outstanding piece and realign your ears to the stylistic wonder of Berlioz and of the early 19th century. Best wishes to you all.
