Customer Reviews

Keeping Score-Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique [Blu-ray]

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Wonderful music. Introduced with great skill by the Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson-Thomas. He explains with much detail all you may want to know about a particular musical work, most of which is from the composers actual home location. This is followed by a full performance of the musical work, brilliantly played by a super good Orchestra in Davies Hall, San Francisco. The camera work is brilliant! In the more recent set of "Keeping Score" recorded in San Francisco, up to 11 cameras are used with unfailing accuracy, by homing in on individual orchestra players at "their moment".

I now own the complete 7 DVD's of this remarkable undertaking. If you are a serious music lover, a teacher, a young or older person, with a classical music interest, then please, put this complete set of 7 DVD's on your shopping list now! I look forward to any continuation of this very worthy project.

This recording absolutely takes you into the heart of an incredible performance by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. There is no seat in the house that could possibly deliver the clarity and presence that this superbly recorded Blu-Ray disc provides. Delivered in a charming and delightful manner, I learned more about the background of Berlioz and the writing of this Symphony than I had ever known before. What an intimate and fulfilling musical experience! The bonus video of the making of this recording was also an informative delight.

Recently I purchased the Berlioz Symphony Fantastique on BluRay, which I believe is the best sounding recording I have ever heard! I was excited to find out that the recording was in discreet 7.1 Dolby TrueHD as it did not show this on the cover. This recording is the first that gave me a true wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling sound experience I am always trying to achieve. The low frequencies are truly amazing! I hope that all future recordings from the Keeping Score series offer the 7.1 option. On this particular BluRay you will need to manually select the 7.1 option in the setup menu. Just get it, you won't be disappointed!

The 26 year old Hector Berlioz burst upon the Paris music scene from the provinces in 1830, two years after the death of Beethoven and three years after Schubert's death, with Symphonie Fantastique, which is a unique dramatization of his own emotions and obsessions.

Michael Tilson Thomas describes the dreams and fantasies of the young Berlioz, who contrived impossible romantic attachments with both fictional characters and real women that he knew. At age 12 he fell hopelessly in love with an 18 year old woman who scorned him. Later it was Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson who became his impossible love.

Symphonie Fantastique is the portrayal of Berlioz writ large as the suffering hero. It is one of the earliest program symphonies. The movement titles summarize the program 1. Reveries, Passions 2. Un Bal 3. Scene Aux Champs 4. Marche Aux Supplice 5. Songue D'Une Nuit Du Sabbat.

The commentary by Thomas is supplemented by brief comments from members of the orchestra and illustrated by passages from the work, followed by a full performance by the San Francisco Symphony.

This is one symphony you will not forget.

Those of you classical music buffs who read the Penguin Gramophone Record and CD reviews for bedtime will know that only very special discs are ever awarded the coveted rosette. Why do I think this disc is so special ?

Well, for starters Michael T Thomas, the conductor, comes up with an educational yet very entertaining introduction and analysis of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique", an inspired musical dream, if ever there was one. In an informal, partly serious, partly gossipy style, MTT narrates the the passion of Berlioz for Harriet Smithson, his muse and idee fixe for this melodramatic symphony, accompanied by high definition video of Paris and the French countryside. The analysis is not profound musicology, but just enough to enhance one's understanding and appreciation of the structure of the piece, and the character of this Byronic megalomaniac.

Secondly, this disc sets the present and future standards for video work for orchestral recordings, thanks indeed to state of the art camera technology and the great coordination between the score reader and the camera team. The video is spot on the various sections of the large orchestra as the complex symphony unfolds and it's as if one were reading the score, pictorially. This disc fulfills the the raison d'etre of classical music on video most elegantly, and that is that one should "see the music"

Last and most importantly, we are treated to a complete concert performance of the Symphony by the San Francisco Symphonic Orchestra, enthusiastically conducted by Thomas, in an audio recording to take one's breath away. In either Dolby TruHD 5.1 or Tru HD 7.1 format, the recorded sound is truly stupendous! The sound stage is full in height and breadth within which musical instruments or sections are boldly 'imaged'. In the 1st movement (Reverie), listen to the the leitmotiv with the high flutes and woodwinds underpinned by the growling cellos and basses. Some conductors emphasize the mysterious aspect of this passage, Thomas emphasizes the delirious ! The "Ball" is played wonderfully in a lilting, rhythmic fashion, with shimmering strings augmented to great effect by the two harps. The "Scene in the Field" opens with a delicious back and forth by the cor anglais, echoed by an oboe off stage, and the Alpine horn melody is then passed on to flute and then to the horns all the time counterpointed by the lower strings. Beautiful.I feel this is the best movement, quiet , pastoral and tender. MTT gives us one of the most exciting "March to the Scaffold" and the sound is really spectacular, especially the drum rolls. But the sonic pyrotechnics are at their peak in the last movement "Witches Sabbath". Audiophiles should have their hearts' delight with the fabulously recorded bass strings, screeching bassoons and flutes; the passage with the bells and the sonorous tuba is worth noting, but above all the drums. Tight,full and deep the drums give a visceral punch and on a system with a good subwoofer you can almost feel the air move. This has to be the best recorded classical music disc, period.

One may argue here and there over points of interpretation, but overall MTT gives a most satisfactory account and this rave review is in no small measure influenced by the fantastic audio and standard setting video/camera work. Friends this is a very special disc.

I mostly just want to say that MTT's exploration of Symphonie Fantastique is yet another excellent addition to this series. There have been some good composer documentaries over the years, and some good conductor/orchestra-centered films as well, but here you get it all in one, and I don't believe any other series has really done this. In addition to a broad but insightful sketch of Berlioz's life, we learn many of the specifics of the history of Symphonie Fantastique. Through it all, MTT relates how these things inform his decisions as a conductor, and we hear from individuals in the San Francisco Symphony as well. Many films of this nature, especially those that make an effort to not exclude children, end up oversimplifying or cheapening something that is really quite profound - great classical music. This series strikes a good balance between offering infotainment that kids will sit through, but still giving the music its due serious consideration.

I know one person in particular who wanted to enjoy classical music, but could never quite connect with it. He needed a "gateway," as he explained it, something that would explain the important aspects to him - the thinking behind the music. I showed him one of this series (the Tchaikovsky episode) and he was very excited; this is exactly what he was looking for. He didn't become an instant classical music nut but he continues to explore and enjoy this music, which he might not have without Keeping Score.

My only complaint is that the initial Tchaikovsky's 4th episode, which I believe served as the "pilot," went further into the actual nuts and bolts operation of the orchestra. We saw the oboe player working with MTT on the famous second movement solo; we saw the concertmaster helping MTT decide on which bowings would best serve his interpretation; a timpanist explained all the preparation he goes through, selecting the appropriate skins and stretching them, choosing the most apt mallets; we even saw how this is all transferred to the individual parts, by the librarians and copyists in the basement. While there are still snippets of this sort of thing in the later Keeping Score episodes, it seems they've decided to largely excise that aspect of things. Too bad, because I found it just as fascinating as the rest.

Finally, the performance of the work is a treat. It looks and sounds amazing on Blu-ray. To be honest, while I have great admiration for MTT, especially his educational outreach which is unparalleled by any living conductor, his recordings are not usually my favorite for a given work. But his performances are never less than solid, and this one is no exception. It may not rank among the best ever recordings of this work but it's a more than adequate conclusion to the documentary portion, and as I said a real treat for the senses.

I have truly become a fan of Blu-Ray and it shows it's abilities best in music. This concert is an excellent demonstration of that. After 5 minutes of ooh's and ah's over the ability to see the woodgrain of the Cello's and fuzz on harp strings I could care less about the video.

But the music! The Symphony! Oh my! I wouldn't claim to be any kind of afficianado of classical music but this concert is truly lovely and the ability to hear each instrument clearly and dicreetly to a degree that you couldn't even do at the concert is wonderful.

I have listened to this concert now a dozen times and will listen to it many dozens more. I tend to agree with others that this is one of the best I have heard. I will leave it to the audiophiles to explain the specific reasons, all I know is that I really like it.

My one little bone to pick (that won't affect 95% of listeners has nothing to do with the concert or the quality of the video or audio. And it isn't this specific disk. There is an Internet database called Gracenote that registers cd, dvd and Blu-Ray's including all the information like cover art, artists, publishers etc. Certain Blu-Ray or other devices can download this information and in my case I own a 400 disc carousal that registers with Gracenote. It seems that publishers of Classical music don't bother to register their disks with Gracenote. Then I have to enter all the information painfully using my remote control. And all I have on the menu is a picture of a disk. (I know Wah, wah). I said it is a little thing. But it bugs me. I've gotten used to having the cover art and stuf with iTunes etc. It is really a "nice to have".

This DVD has two sections, one, a spoken overview of the music. Tilson Thomas is an amiable and well-informed guide, but how many times are you going to want to listen to him talk about the music, as opposed to simply watch and listen to (watchen) the performance? So the performance option should be the very easy default choice in the menu system, right? If you can figure out how to make it do that, you let me know.

A pleasant, edifying performance, of which I wish there were far more; Blu-ray is a wonderful medium for classical performance, but there are far too few to choose from.

Sound is good, but a little mushy and muted in the high end, compared to some of the German productions I've watchened. Also, SFS isn't quite the Berlin Philharmonic, either. All told, though, a very pleasant addition to the library, especially if they would make the menu more straightforward to navigate. If you're desperate to skip the introduction, start at track 21.

The Symphonie Fantastique was written to attract the attention of Irish woman, actress Harriet Smithson. He saw her in 1827 in a performance of Hamlet.He married Harriet in 1833. This symphony was first performed in the Conservatory,Paris in 1830. The work has a programme. 1. Dreams, Passions. 2. The ball and so on. Michael Tilson Thomas with the San Francisco Symphony bring alive this work. Thomas explains Berlioz's life and what the symphony means in the extra documentary. You have individual musicians explaining their part in the work. This series includes Shostakovich,5th Symphony. Beethoven's 3rd, Stravinsky-Rite of Spring,Copland and Ives and Tchaikovsky. Excellent for those knowing nothing about classical music. Also, useful for schools and Universities teaching music.For more information about Berlioz, get hold of I, Berlioz, a Tony Palmer film. The Memoirs of Berlioz, ed David Cairns. This Bluray can be played in Australia. The others,unfortunately not. I wish various companies that produce DVDs and Blurays, realize that this region business is silly and make them all worldwide as opus arte and Euroarts does.

We need more Blu-ray discs like this. The audio is superb and the video brings out the audio. By this I mean that, when the video shows a particular set of instruments, such as the violas, your mind hears them clearly within the rest of the orchestra. This version of Berlioz' masterpiece is conducted by Thomas with somewhat slower cadences than in other versions, but this serves only to make the piece even more beautiful. Listen to and watch the concert first, then watch Thomas' discussion of the facts of Berlioz' life that must have influenced this wonderful piece of music. This disc is a must for any classicial fan that has a decent surround audio system, and it is a must for any new listener trying to understand classical music. 5-stars and then some. This is the future of classical music and a bright future it is.