Fanfare Reviews
from November/December 1989
Reviews: Berlioz
GRANDE SYMPHONIE FUNÈBRE ET TRIOMPHALE. The Wallace Collection in Berlioz and Music from the French Revolution. John Wallace conducting; Dudley Bright, trombone1; Leeds Festival Chorus (Simon Wright, Chorus Master)2; The Wallace Collection. NIMBUS NI 5175 [DDD]; 57:16.
BERLIOZ: Symphonie funèbre et triomphale1,2. GOSSEC: Symphonie militaire. Marche lugubre. JADIN: Overture in F. CHERUBINI: Hymne à la victoire2. LEFEVRE: Hymne à l'agriculture2. ROUGET DE LISLE: La Marseillaise--hymne à la liberté (arr. Gossec, orch. Humphrles)2.
The opening bars of Berlioz's Symphonie funèbre startle with a sense of lift unheard on discs since the Paris Police Band's 1976 remake (Nonesuch H-71368, Fanfare 3:3; Calliope compact disc CAL 9859, Fanfare 11:4, p. 269), though further comparison with that gung-ho but scrappy gang and their shrill, thin buzz pales before the Wallace Collection's crisp winds, drums snapping in proud precision, brass modulating smartly from a smooth blaze to crackling glory, and "the tout ensemble of the whole" (as one wag put it) burnished to glowing brilliance. If the brisk pace of the outer movements lessens the tension toward climactic moments, it also affords a welcome relief from the familiar pseudo-Brucknerian tomtoming gravitas. And the "Oraison" trombone solo, for once, is securely delivered with a real and moving cantabile, rendering credible its origin as an aria from the unfinished opera Les Francsjuges. In this ambience, the readings of Davis (Philips 416 283-2, Fanfare 9:6) and Dutoit (London 417 302-2, Fanfare 10:4) seem tame, finicking, and academic--as if they thought the work a curious freak requiring careful handling. It is not too much to say that, for the first time on discs, the Symphonie funèbre's stature as a major component of the Berlioz canon--a genuine and substantial thriller in the Grand Manner--has been unequivocally revealed. Indeed, with this recording one may well feel that one is hearing the work for the first time. (Penning the foregoing with some uneasiness, lest it should appear that I'd taken liberties with Hyperbole, I was gratified to come across the astute John Bauman's unabashed rave in Fanfare 12:6, p. 315f., that The Wallace Collection's "Rule Britannia" [Nimbus NI 5155] is, bar none, the finest collection of this sort which it has been my pleasure to hear.") As a glance at the headnote tells, the remainder of the program offers works of the French Revolution--stunningly performed, though if that were their only interest it were interest enough--which dovetail winningly with those on Michel Plasson's recent Révolution française disc (EMI Pathé CDC 7 49470 2), down to the inclusion there of the recently discovered Berlioz arrangement of Rouget de Lisle's Chant du neuf thermidor and the opportunity to compare Berlioz's arrangement of La Marseillaise with the revolutionary period Gossec arrangement heard here. Nimbus's recording strikes an ideally immediate balance between spaciousness and detailed clarity. And this exemplary production is rounded off with lyrics and translations complemented by John Humphries's fine, informed annotations. Classic, indispensable, revolutionary--and enthusiastically urged upon you.
Adrian Corleonis
Copyright © 1989 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 13, No. 2 (November/December 1989), pages 146-147. This recording has been reissued on Wallace Collection 2010.
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