Hector Berlioz: Harold En Italie, Op. 16

Hector Berlioz (Composer), John Eliot Gardiner (Conductor), Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique (Orchestra), Monteverdi Choir (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Monteverdi Choir
• Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
• Composer: Hector Berlioz
• Audio CD (July 30, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Philips
• ASIN: B0000041DH
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #173,364 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Great Performances of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy", August 27, 2001

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hector Berlioz: Harold En Italie, Op. 16 (Audio CD)

Gardiner and his period instrument ensemble have rendered one of the finest performances I have heard of Berlioz's "Harold in Italy". It is probably comparable in quality to Sir Colin Davis' critcially acclaimed recording with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Certainly the sound quality is exceptional. I found Gardiner's interpretation quite riveting, filled with excitement. Anyone looking for a splendid account of this Berlioz work will not be disappointed.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the greatest performances of this piece., September 17, 1999

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john andrews (usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hector Berlioz: Harold En Italie, Op. 16 (Audio CD)

Gardiner and his orchestra bring a sense of drama to "Harold" which equals the greatest readings, including those of Beecham and Davis. Causse delivers a highly sensitive and understated reading. The recorded sound is excellent. Highly recommended listening.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back from Oblivion!, July 20, 2010

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Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hector Berlioz: Harold En Italie, Op. 16 (Audio CD)

Back from "forgottenness" for me, I mean. I had an intense Berlioz phase as a teenager, when I played his music in the school orchestra and heard it on LPs. Then my musical focus shifted in time and I lost interest in anything composed after Mozart but before Schoenberg. John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Revolutionnaire have revived my crush on Berlioz with their DVD performance of his opera Les Troyens and with this stunningly evocative interpretation of Harold en Italie. Yes, I have heard Colin Davis's version, and yes, I do prefer Gardiner's. The orchestral colors are clearer and the phrasing is more transparent, and it helps that the sound recording on this CD is unusually accurate.

Harold en Italie is named after the lugubriously romantic poem by Lord Byron, but it was inspired more directly by Berlioz's visit to Italy in 1831. Listeners often imagine that the lovely melody given to the viola represents the pensive observer Harold. The symphony is a riot of musical impressionism, all sunlight and mountain crags and adolescent yearnings. Adolescent? So it sounds to me, but then I regard the entire romantic era as a phenomenon of cultural adolescence. Probably that was what appealed to me about Harold and the Symphonie Fantastique when i was an adolescent myself, and probably my current appreciation is a sign that I've entered my second adolescence. The "stages of life" have been augmented, you know. The cycle used to be roughly: infancy, childhood, youth/adolescence, independent adulthood, maturity, senescence/second-childhood. Almost universal retirement and extended lifespans have inserted another stage - second teenagerhood - between maturity and senescence.

But I still can't read Byron.