More Blind Comparisons! - Symphonie fantastique

[MishaK]

Come on guys. I'm going on vacation on Wednesday. We'll want to get these clips figured out by then.    M is only about half right with his guesses, so don't put too much weight on them. There is still a lot more to be discussed about the differences among the performances and the various orchestral styles on exhibit here. And again, guessing the performers is not so much the point.

[Drasko]

Sorry man, it's 43°C and I'm not going even near headphones these days.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Sorry man, it's 43°C and I'm not going even near headphones these days.

Where it is 43°C? Anything above 30 and I find it unbearable.

[MishaK]

Where it is 43°C? Anything above 30 and I find it unbearable.

I think he means Belgrade. Listen to Maazel's Sibelius. It's better than airconditioning. 

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay, D: Very nice playing if a bit underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the performance, just doesn't grab my attention. Has some similarities with A in terms of the lithe and responsive performance, but lacks sufficient contrast to make it a great performance. For example the pizzicato in the violins after the first tuba Dies Irae is rather tame (listen to clip A to see how it sould sound, it is marked forte). 32nd notes and tremolos sound rather muffled and you hear every one of those notes in A. A rather weak timpani 5 bars after 80 where you should let it rip here. The con legno violin playing is again way too weak to make the nasty impact it needs. Sounds a bit like MTT/SFSO (I knw the critics love that recording but I am not a big fan).

E: Again, a rather good if undistinguished performance. The allegro assai right before the E-flat clarinet entrance in the beginning sounds rhythmically a bit slack. The tuba solo is completely too lame. Where are the accent marks? And it is completely too "nice" a sound. If Berlioz wanted this kind of smooth sound he would have used a trombone. And Berlioz clearly writes "senza accel" so why the sudden picking up in pace. The string playing for the most part is workman-like but not with the same calculated pride and vigor as in A. The con legno playing in the violins should be as loud as the melody, not some accompaniment. To hear how it  should be done listen to A or a Munch/BSO recording.   All in all a nice performance but not my first choice.

[MishaK]

Guys, I just got an email notifying me that the bandwith limit for the clip downloads from yousendit has been exceeded. This means two things: 1. I will re-upload the clips to a different provider when I get home tonight; 2. there are a ton of lurkers around who have downloaded the clips but haven't said a word yet. You know who you are.  Give us your thoughts.

[PerfectWagnerite]

2. there are a ton of lurkers around who have downloaded the clips but haven't said a word yet. You know who you are.  Give us your thoughts.

Not to make excuses but I find this a much more difficult piece to evaluate than the M Forever clips for some reason. Maybe because M's German/Austrian clips show more strict sense of formal proportion and we are all familiar with that kind of music.

[MishaK]

Not to make excuses but I find this a much more difficult piece to evaluate than the M Forever clips for some reason. Maybe because M's German/Austrian clips show more strict sense of formand proportion and we are all familiar with that kind of music.

Very good point. Which is what I am trying to elucidate with my questioning, because I think something else is important in this repertoire and structure makes itself apparent in different ways. Berlioz is not Bruckner.

[Larry Rinkel]

Guys, I just got an email notifying me that the bandwith limit for the clip downloads from yousendit has been exceeded. This means two things: 1. I will re-upload the clips to a different provider when I get home tonight; 2. there are a ton of lurkers around who have downloaded the clips but haven't said a word yet. You know who you are.  Give us your thoughts.

Patience, Herr Mensch. (Or can I call you just "O"?) Ardent Berliozian that I am, I have downloaded your clips, burned a CD for myself, listened to each track once, and now need a little time to formulate my thoughts. But as I stated on the Mystery Going on on Vacation thread:

Too busy helping Guido with his Rite of Spring transcription. And I promised Rappy to listen to his violin concerto. Of course, if the pay weren't so munificent, I wouldn't be posting on this board at all . . . .

[rubio]

I can give my impressions on these clips.

Clip A: It was very fascinating to listen to this detailed recording. Some beautiful string and woodwind playing in the beginning of the piece. The performance sounds very neutral to me in a good way. From what I've heard of Boulez this could be him conducting. I think he could achieve this sound with several orchestras.

Clip B: This orchestra has a more characteristic sound and it could be French. The flutes/obos (?) from 1:43-2:10 (+ other places) produce a very unusual sound compared to clip A. Generally I like this clip as much as clip B as it sounds more individual. Sometimes there is also more attack than for clip A that I find exciting/more wild. I also like the sound of the brass and bells. It gives a special atmosphere which kind of transports me back in time.

Clip C: If I imagine clip B to sound French I have a harder time placing this orchestra. The woodwind playing from 1:30-1.55 is not so characteristic. I don't really hear the bells too much and several such small details probably make the performance a little less attractive to me. The sound is a bit inferior, and in a way the orchestral playing seems less coherent than compared to clip A (especially) and clip B.

It was very nice to listen to these clips, and for sure I will purchase clip A after revealed and probably also clip B  .

I tried to look at the score when listening to these pieces, but this was difficult as it was not printed out and when I cannot read notes. However I would like to learn something more. How do I e.g. locate measure 10-17? I didn't see many numbers here. Any recommendation for a good book on how to read scores?

[PerfectWagnerite]

I tried to look at the score when listening to these pieces, but this was difficult as it was not printed out and when I cannot read notes. However I would like to learn something more. How do I e.g. locate measure 10-17? I didn't see many numbers here. Any recommendation for a good book on how to read scores?

In reply #6 Larry was kind enough to give a pdf file location of the full orchestral score. It is rather large at 26 Mb but if you can download the clips you can probably download that without any problem.  The last movement is about 50 pages long and I can see why you don't want to print it out.

That particular score doesn't come with bar numbers but has rehearsal numbers. Usually when that happens you just say: 5 measures about rehearsal #80, for example.

[MishaK]

That particular score doesn't come with bar numbers but has rehearsal numbers. Usually when that happens you just say: 5 measures about rehearsal #80, for example.

...or otherwise you just have to count bars from the start, which in case of 10-17 wouldn't be all too many. But it will be a bit difficult if you can't read music at all, as you will at least have to have figured out the meter.

[PerfectWagnerite]

If you can't read music what are you doing with a score

[MishaK]

I have updated the download links on the first post. Yousendit had run out of bandwidth. So now you can download the clips again.

[Larry Rinkel]

The problem with listening to five clips in a row is that you tend to give more attention to the first two or three, and while of course you don't have to do all of them in one day, after a while you just want to get it over with. For "you," read "I" if you prefer. Still, I think the first two performances are the most interesting, though at least four of them have some merits.

C first. It is obviously live and could be the kind of performance you leave the hall thinking, that was incredibly exciting. But what works in the hall may not survive repeated hearings. It starts well enough but even the opening figure is careless dynamically, played at a steady mf rather than Berlioz's piano crescendo to mf. The winds make no attempt at their octave glissandos. Still the introduction is the best part of the performance, as once the main tempo emerges, I found myself writing, "too fast too soon!" "dynamics ignored!" (See p 108 in the score I referenced above, where the ppp is ignored, or rehearsal 68, where the f>p marking is not heard at all.) The bells are dreadful, especially the lower one, where the overtones sound dissonant and confusing. The performance gets more and more manic as it goes on, the col legnos are a mess, and the trombones can't keep up at all at the end. A near train wreck for all concerned.

A is at the opposite pole. Probably the longest and slowest performance of the bunch, it sounds totally professional and well-controlled. Instead of glissandi on the winds, we get fast chromatic scales (at least so it sounds to me). The intro sounds deliberate, the Dies Irae majestic, emphasizing the tuba. Bells are deep and full, with rich overtones. It is a performance that feels more like a cathedral than a witches' sabbath, with less of the grotesque element than B. On a forum several years ago, one person swore by Klemperer of all people in this music, and I've never found this recording. I'm going to guess this is Klemperer.

B is in all ways lighter, faster, more sardonic, somehow more French - if irony, wit, satire are characteristics of the French. Since I believe I have this recording, I won't give it away, but memory could play tricks on me until I do a direct comparison. In the intro the dynamic contrasts are sharp, with really a big timpani stroke at rehearsal 62. The E flat clarinet and bassoon are terrifically sharp and nasty. In the Dies Irae I think I hear more bassoon than tuba, but my notes kept indicating how well the balances are handled throughout, and how much attention to the written dynamics. He tends to be steady in tempo, with no "animez" before the gigue begins, and a fairly slight animez at the end. I might like a little more flexibility in tempo at times, but for the most part this is excellent, my top choice.

D has some nice features but is somehow less interesting overall than A or B, or maybe I was just getting weary of the thing. As one to consider buying, it's ruled out for me by the bells, which are these high-pitched, overly bright puny things that don't at all match Berlioz's notated bass registers. You want bells, hear A. But he's very attentive to the dynamics, especially the soft ppp, and one striking sound occurs midway through the Dies Irae, where he seems to direct the tubas to play cuivré, a hard-blowing effect that causes the metal of the instrument to vibrate.

E's bells are kind of puny and distant too, and he takes a couple of accelerandos not written in the score, such as 5 after 64. In fact at the start of the Dies Irae, where Berlioz writes "san presser," he seems to go faster, and when the gigue starts, there's no "un peu retenu" as marked. His final acceleration seems to start too soon, too, certainly sooner than called for in the score. Can't say I feel much about this performance either way; it is certainly a professional job versus the out of control C, but it doesn't have the character of either A or B.

[MishaK]

Very good and very interesting comments, Larry. Thanks for that. I will respond in more detail tomorrow. Have had too much wine right now. But very good observations.

[MishaK]

The problem with listening to five clips in a row is that you tend to give more attention to the first two or three, and while of course you don't have to do all of them in one day, after a while you just want to get it over with. For "you," read "I" if you prefer. Still, I think the first two performances are the most interesting, though at least four of them have some merits.

This is actually a very good point. Five ten minute clips are a lot of music. I think I may reduce both the length and the number of clips in the future. I thought about arranging the clips in the way one would arrange wines in a wine tasting, starting with the lightest and moving toward the heaviest, but that would be stacking the deck in a way. I realize that after the raw energy of Clip C everything else after must seem like a letdown which is unfortunate because I think the conductors in Clips D and E have something valid to say. Maybe some of the lurkers which haven't posted yet could act as a control group and start with D and E first before moving on to the other clips. It would be interesting to see whether they are as unimpressed with these performances as the posters so far.

I truncated the rest of your post into two parts because you touch upon two issues that are rather distinctive in how they are handled by the different conductors in these clips.

C first. ... The bells are dreadful, especially the lower one, where the overtones sound dissonant and confusing.

A. ...Bells are deep and full, with rich overtones. It is a performance that feels more like a cathedral than a witches' sabbath, with less of the grotesque element than B.

D. As one to consider buying, it's ruled out for me by the bells, which are these high-pitched, overly bright puny things that don't at all match Berlioz's notated bass registers. You want bells, hear A.

E's bells are kind of puny and distant too,

These comments echo something that I often hear from people who put down this or that performance of Symphonie fantastique because the bells are "puny" or not sufficiently "ominous". In respect of the bells, the clips I posted here don't even cover the full spectrum of possibilities which range from the indaudible to Vladimir Golschmann's recording with the Vienna Philharmonic, where he has two actual one ton cast iron church bells placed on stage which are woefully out of tune, produce a bewildering array of overtones and have a two minute reverb. But query what the desired effect should be here. Berlioz indicates that the bells should be placed "derrière la scène" and that if properly tuned bells are not available, the bell part should be played on a piano in the octaves indicated (so that's actually what the noted bass register applies to). So, in essence, these should be offstage bells suggesting the tolling of a distant village church. The witches aren't dancing inside the belfry after all. The tricky thing here is to get the balances right. The offstage bells in the Dies irae must compete with the onstage tuba, bassoons and double basses. That is often hard to achieve properly in a recording. So I wonder whether the cathedral effect you mention with respect to A is really what is desired here. Does anyone have any further thoughts on the bells?

A ... the Dies Irae majestic, emphasizing the tuba.

B ... In the Dies Irae I think I hear more bassoon than tuba, but my notes kept indicating how well the balances are handled throughout, and how much attention to the written dynamics.

D ... But he's very attentive to the dynamics, especially the soft ppp, and one striking sound occurs midway through the Dies Irae, where he seems to direct the tubas to play cuivré, a hard-blowing effect that causes the metal of the instrument to vibrate.

These are some very good observations also noted by PW and in part by M. We discussed already a bit the original orchestration of the Dies irae with ophicleides and serpent. What do you think this should sound like and whose handling of colors and balances do you find most interesting or convincing here? Would you like me to post an excerpt of the Gardiner Dies irae as reference?

[PerfectWagnerite]

A is at the opposite pole. Probably the longest and slowest performance of the bunch, it sounds totally professional and well-controlled. Instead of glissandi on the winds, we get fast chromatic scales (at least so it sounds to me).

How would you play a glissando on an instrument like the flute if you don't play a fast chromatic scale?

[Larry Rinkel]

Berlioz indicates that the bells should be placed "derrière la scène"

Don't have much time right now, but where is this indicated? I don't recall seeing this direction before.

[Larry Rinkel]

How would you play a glissando on an instrument like the flute if you don't play a fast chromatic scale?

Perfectly fair question! I guess it's a matter of how you interpret that slide. Should it be a full octave glissando with distinct pitches, or a portamento a few degrees down from the upper C with indistinct pitches? And here I admit I'm out of my depth on woodwind technique. We need Jochanaan! (A clarinet, at least, seems capable of an extended portamento, as in the opening of Rhapsody in Blue.)