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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW!, August 18, 2008
This review is from: Saint-Saëns: Symphonie No. 3 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)
I've listened to this work for decades, both on recording and live. This recording is a wonderful surprise. It captures the beautiful, precise playing as well as the long reverberation of the cathedral.
I think the organ sounds too distant here, but it is a good compromise. This is one of the most challenging works to record because it involves organ which requires long reverberation, and orchestra which requires relatively short reverberation.
A very satisfying recording of the Organ Symphony. Recommended!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top-Rated "Organ" Symphony, June 18, 2008
This review is from: Saint-Saëns: Symphonie No. 3 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)
This fine recording of Saint-Saens' "Organ" Symphony has received top marks from Classics Today for both artistic and sound quality, and the ratings are fully deserved. As the previous reviewer has noted, the performance reminds one of Charles Munch's classic recording from 1959 with the Boston Symphony. According to the timings, Nézet-Séguin takes a couple of minutes longer than Munch, but you'd never realize that just from listening to the two discs. This performance provides all of the excitement and energy that one expects from this orchestral spectacle. Where Atma ultimately scores over RCA, however, is in the quality of the recording. The engineers have managed to capture the reverberation of the vast venue yet not muddy the orchestral detail. Moreover, technology has advanced in the past 50 years, and by most accounts the SACD version of Munch's performance is not wholly successful.
At the time of this recording in 2005, Nézet-Séguin was not well known outside his native Montreal. Since then, however, in the words of the New York Times, he "has been causing a stir wherever he goes." He was named music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 2007, made his debut at Salzburg in the summer of 2009, and will conduct the Metropolitan Opera later in the year. Says the Met's Peter Gelb, "We're hoping that he will emerge as one of the great new talents."
Organist Philippe Bélanger also performs three highly attractive pieces for solo organ. Guilmant's "March on 'Lift Up Your Heads'" from Handel's Messiah is one of those virtuosic organ fireworks that has been frequently recorded; it's hard to imagine how any lover of organ music could fail to enjoy it. Vierne's "Carillon de Westminster" is based on the famous chimes of Big Ben and equally appealing. The final track is the allegro vivace from Widor's Sixth Symphony for Organ.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An elegant, well-recorded performance, January 5, 2007
This review is from: Saint-Saëns: Symphonie No. 3 [Hybrid SACD] (Audio CD)
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes on the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with cool detachment and turns in a fine performance. The Poco adagio is elegant rather than impassioned, while the finale is grand and stately but not at all over-the-top. The Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal has a strong, lean sound and impressive rhythmic vitality, heard to especially fine account in the scherzo. In some ways, this performance is reminiscent of the classic Munch/Boston from RCA, but where Munch occasionally pushed for a sense of restlessness, Nézet-Séguin lets the music unfold naturally and logically while maintaining relatively brisk tempos. Listeners looking to leisurely bathe in luxurious romantic sound during the slow movement or thrill to glorious bombast in the final pages (and a little bombast is a good thing now and then) will probably find one of the many other recordings--for example, the very good Maazel/Pittsburgh--more to their liking. But Nézet-Séguin is clearly among the top contenders in this crowded field.
The SACD surround recording positions the listener relatively close to the orchestra, with the organ some distance behind. This allows for a cleanly detailed recording in the big acoustic space of St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal. The surround program is particularly spacious and clean--especially the impressive 32' pedal, and the 2-channel version also sounds quite natural. (By the way, no dubbing here as there is on some other discs. Organ and orchestra were recorded at the same place, same time!)
After its cameo appearance in the Saint-Saëns, the Oratory's 117-rank Beckerath organ gets a solo turn when resident organist Philippe Bélanger plays three enjoyable encores.
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