Books, Arts & Manners: A Small Gamut of Music

The Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, like the Harold in Italy and the Enfance du Christ, is the kind of composition that grows with repeated playing. There seem to be voices within voices which call out differently at the, summons of different conductors and orchestras. But Roger Norrington’s with the London Classical Players (Angel-EMI CDC 7 49541 2) is the most exciting and fulfilling Fantastique I have yet heard—and perhaps the closest to what Berlioz himself heard from the podium. For the London Classical Players not only play instruments of Berlioz’s time, they also are arranged on the platform in the manner Berlioz wanted, and this makes a difference in what we hear and how we hear it. But it is Norrington’s reading that seizes us, for he gets to the gut of the score as none other, I would suggest, has. It is easy to understand why there is something of a Norrington vogue on both sides of the Atlantic.

□ Norrington also brings us an “original instruments” version of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Angel-EMI CDC 7 49509 2). These two lovely works of the younger Beethoven are usually played somewhat casually, asifina hurry to get to the main event, Nos. 4 & 5. Norrington, again with the London Classical Players, gives them their full due—showing us that though Beethoven was still indebted to the Haydn-Mozart classicism, he already spoke with the authority of his own voice. Melvyn Tan, a sensitive young pianist, contributes a sound and vigorous performance at the fortepiano —an instrument of more flexible utterance than the more brilliant and metallic pianoforte. Perhaps it is the lift he gets from Norrington, but I prefer these recordings to those recently released by Claudio Arrau.

RT

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Ralph de Toledano

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The Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, like the Harold in Italy and the Enfance du Christ, is the kind of composition that grows with repeated playing. There seem to be voices within voices which call out differently at the, summons of different conductors and orchestras. But Roger Norrington’s with the London Classical Players (Angel-EMI CDC 7 49541 2) is the most exciting and fulfilling Fantastique I have yet heard—and perhaps the closest to what Berlioz himself heard from the podium. For the London Classical Players not only play instruments of Berlioz’s time, they also are arranged on the platform in the manner Berlioz wanted, and this makes a difference in what we hear and how we hear it. But it is Norrington’s reading that seizes us, for he gets to the gut of the score as none other, I would suggest, has. It is easy to understand why there is something of a Norrington vogue on both sides of the Atlantic.

□ Norrington also brings us an “original instruments” version of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Angel-EMI CDC 7 49509 2). These two lovely works of the younger Beethoven are usually played somewhat casually, asifina hurry to get to the main event, Nos. 4 & 5. Norrington, again with the London Classical Players, gives them their full due—showing us that though Beethoven was still indebted to the Haydn-Mozart classicism, he already spoke with the authority of his own voice. Melvyn Tan, a sensitive young pianist, contributes a sound and vigorous performance at the fortepiano —an instrument of more flexible utterance than the more brilliant and metallic pianoforte. Perhaps it is the lift he gets from Norrington, but I prefer these recordings to those recently released by Claudio Arrau.