Your Top 5 Favourite Berlioz Works

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Couldn't find Top 5 Works about Berlioz...

[North Star]

Hector didn't mind being without one

Lets see...


La damnation de Faust
Harold en Italie
L'enfance du Christ
Grande Messe des morts
Roméo et Juliette (for Scène d'amour)

[Karl Henning]

Karlo wins!

[Spineur]

les nuits d'été
la damnation de faust
benvenuto cellini
Herminie
neuf melodies sur des poemes de thomas moore

last but not least
The most inspired version (Shostakovich comes as a close second) of the french national anthem

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Requiem (x5!!)
Romeo & Juliette
Les Troyens
La Damnation de Faust
Sara La baigneuse (for soprano, mezzo, and piano)

[TheGSMoeller]

Symphonie Fantastique
Harold In Italy
Damnation of Faust
L'Enfance Du Christ
Symphonie Funebre Et Triomphale

[Monsieur Croche]

1.) Les nuits d'été
1.) Les nuits d'été
1.) Les nuits d'été
1.) Les nuits d'été
1.) Les nuits d'été

[Wanderer]

Symphonie fantastique
Roméo et Juliette
Grande Messe des morts
Les Troyens
Harold en Italie

Honourable mentions:

Herminie
Messe solennelle

[some guy]

Well, asking for five favorite Berlioz works is almost like asking for five favorite Shostakovich symphonies.

Once you've gotten to five, there are only a few more at all, so why not just list all of your favorites?

So, in no necessary order:

Benvenuto Cellini
Romeo et Juliette
Marche funèbre pour la dernière scène d'Hamlet
Les Troyens
Beatrice et Benedict
La damnation de Faust
La mort d'Orphee
La mort de Cleopatre
Grande messe des mortis
Symphonie fantastique
Te deum (original version)
Le francs juges overture
Lelio
Le roi Lear overture
L'enfance du Christ
Grande symphonie funebre et triomphale
Les nuits d'ete
Messe solennelle

And the ones not on this list? I like them better than I like most other pieces by other composers around the same time; they're just not favorite pieces by Berlioz, that's all.

[TheGSMoeller]

Symphonie Fantastique
Harold In Italy
Damnation of Faust
L'Enfance Du Christ
Symphonie Funebre Et Triomphale

As with most of these Top 5 lists when I return to them I feel I left some of my favorites out, so these are honorable mentions of works that I have to add....

La Mort De Cleopatre
Rob Roy Overture
Sara La Baigneuse Op.11

[springrite]

The Damn Nation of Faust
Les Troyens
Benvenuto Cellini
Les nuits d'été
Fantastique

[zamyrabyrd]

The Damn Nation of Faust

Which nation?

[Sergeant Rock]

Grande messe des mortis (Requiem)
Symphonie fantastique
Les nuits d'ete
Les francs-juges Overture
Le carnaval romain Overture

(The absence of R&J and Faust may seem perverse but I have not yet warmed to the whole of either work. Still trying though  )

[Sergeant Rock]

Rob Roy Overture

  ...I have never heard that! Must check it out on YouTube.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

  ...I have never heard that! Must check it out on YouTube.

Sarge

Sir Walter Scott was a really hot property in his day!  I've never succeeded in reading through any of his work, though.  Not sure that this may not be a failing of my own.

[Sergeant Rock]

Sir Walter Scott was a really hot property in his day!  I've never succeeded in reading through any of his work, though.

I did finish Ivanhoe...the 1952 film    (starring Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders)

Sarge

[Ghost Sonata]

I'm sure in accord with M. Croche and some guy's responses.  Still,

Fantastique
Nuits
Troyens
Harold
Grande Messe Nope, L'enfance has to be in here.

...and, comparatively unknown, but in the "running": le Chant des chemins de fer :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6UV2Of1L8E   There may be unrecorded works of his of interest... Music critic Alan Rich sez no Berlioz work sounds like another and no other composer like him.  He also points out how regularly B. will drop notes out of chords (a not uncommon technique) but B. does this a lot! as, interestingly, many contemporary guitarists do.

[Maestro267]

Symphonie Fantastique
Te Deum
Requiem
Grand symphonie funebre et triomphale
Romeo et Juliette

[Jo498]

The Rob Roy Ouverture is a fairly early work, without an opus number, I think. It actually already contains the Harold-Theme. I only recently heard it for the first time; it is included in a Berlioz Ouverture disc with Cambreling/SWR. (It seems to be missing on the collections Davis or Munch conducted)

I read "Ivanhoe" in translation many years ago but did not beyond the first few pages of "Waverley" in English. But I always wanted to try another of Scott's because I somehow think I should like that stuff. Maybe "Rob Roy"...

I think I can only name 3 real favorites; I have heard "Le Troyens" maybe once and also some vague acquaintance with the choral works (Requiem and Te Deum) but I never really got into any of them and they are not really favorites. I have a soft spot for "Harold" but I think it is a flawed piece and the ouvertures are fun but nothing I could not do without.

La Damnation de Faust (this is by far my favorite piece of this composer)
Romeo & Juliette
Symphonie Fantastique

[North Star]

I have a soft spot for "Harold" but I think it is a flawed piece

How so? I'd much rather say Roméo et Juliette is flawed as a whole.