This CD is reissued by ArkivMusic.
Notes and Editorial Reviews
The consistent nervous intensity was what marked out Markevitch's reading of the Symphonie fantastique. This is a singularly compulsive reading—a real performance, which grips this listener unreservedly.
The consistent nervous intensity was what marked out Markevitch's reading of the Symphonie fantastique. His impetuousness is immediately striking in the allegro of the first movement, but it sounds highly charged and spontaneous. The Waltz too, although not without elegance, has an underlying neurosis and the Adagio, for all its pastoral atmosphere is never bland. What Markevitch achieves is to balance the movement's natural repose with the composer's underlying hints of emotional instability, so that when the climax
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wells up after some gloriously warm and serene string playing, it produces a sudden explosive power, only to subside again quite naturally. The opening of the finale, after the rasping bite of the ''Marche au supplice'' is immediately gripping in its atmospheric evocation, and there is plenty of doom-laden excitement, with the church bell, tolling dramatically, answered by the Dies irae given ponderous, sinister force by the deep brass. The movement moves inexorably to its apotheosis, never over-driven, yet with the tension held consistently. All in all this is a singularly compulsive reading—a real performance, which grips this listener unreservedly. The Lamoureux Orchestra play with great vividness and the recording matches the playing. The digital remastering retains the full analogue ambience and the believable original balance; only the focus of the upper strings reveals the recording date and their timbre is fully acceptable.
-- Ivan March, Gramophone 1/1989
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Works on This Recording
1.
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 by Hector Berlioz
Conductor:
Igor Markevitch
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Lamoureux Concerts Association Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1830; France
Date of Recording: 01/1961
Venue: Salle de la Mutualité, Paris
Length: 52 Minutes 12 Secs.
2.
Anacréon: Overture by Luigi Cherubini
Conductor:
Igor Markevitch
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Lamoureux Concerts Association Orchestra
Period: Classical
Written: 1803; France
Date of Recording: 01/1961
Venue: Salle de la Mutualité, Paris
Length: 9 Minutes 44 Secs.
3.
La muette de Portici: Overture by Daniel-François Auber
Conductor:
Igor Markevitch
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Lamoureux Concerts Association Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1828; France
Date of Recording: 01/1961
Venue: Salle de la Mutualité, Paris
Length: 8 Minutes 18 Secs.
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