HECTOR BERLIOZ (1803-1869)

 

1-5) Symphonie fantastique Op. 14

i. Rêveries – Passions

ii. Un bal

iii. Scène aux champs

iv. Marche au supplice

v. Songe d'une nuit du Sabbat

           

6-7) La mort de Cléopâtre

i. Scène lyrique

ii. Méditation

 

Having championed Russian and German repertoire in their first three releases of 2008, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker turned to French music for their latest CD, specifically the Symphonie fantastique and La mort de Cléopâtre by Hector Berlioz. The Grammy-Award winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham is featured in La mort de Cléopâtre.

 

Not long ago, Rattle said of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s sound: "It's like an enormous heat source that comes at you, and you feel as though you can burn in it." The orchestra bring the intensity Rattle describes directly to bear on Berlioz’s work, undaunted by the fire in late May 2008 at Berlin’s Philharmonie that resulted in a last minute change of date and venue to Berlin’s Jesus Christ Kirche for the recording of this album.

 

The Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz’s most famous work, was inspired by Berlioz’s unrequited love for the young English actress Harriet Smithson, member of a troupe that came to perform Shakespeare’s plays in Paris in 1827. When Smithson left Paris at the end of the season without responding to any of Berlioz’s efforts to contact her, he expressed his frustration in the form of a ‘dramatic symphony’ that was a hybrid form blending elements from the opera world with those of the symphonic tradition. To make sure his audience understood the subtext of his ‘autobiographical symphony,’ Berlioz distributed a full-page printed programme at its premiere in 1830. With movements entitled Rêveries – Passions, Un bal, Scène aux champs, March au supplice and Songe d’une nuit du Sabbat, the Symphonie fantastique demonstrates the colourful and innovative instrumental techniques that earned Berlioz a reputation as a superlative orchestrator.

 

La mort de Cléopâtre is one of four dramatic cantatas that Berlioz composed between 1827 and 1830 in his attempt to win the Prix de Rome, a composition contest sponsored by the Institut de France. Having won the second prize in 1828, he submitted La mort de Cléopâtre the following year but its harmonies were too bold, its structure too untraditional for the conservative judges who did not award any prize at all that year. Berlioz described La mort de Cléopâtre as “sombre, broad, sinister and lugubrious: a great voice breathing a menacing lament in the mysterious stillness of the night.” It tells of the suicide of the Egyptian queen, who has allowed herself to be bitten by a poisonous snake. Rather than set the assigned text in the expected form of two arias with connecting recitatives, Berlioz included a Meditation and employed what he called ‘measured recitative’ in his treatment of Cleopatra’s death.

 

Susan Graham is one of today’s foremost opera stars, a versatile and compelling singing actress with a devoted international following. She enchants audiences with her expressive voice and her natural, engaging acting ability in both comedy and tragedy. A dedicated Francophile and expert in French music, decorated by the French government with a Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ms. Graham devoted her 2007-2008 season almost exclusively to French repertoire: She opened her season – and that of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – singing the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, a production that was greeted with unanimous critical praise. Susan Graham opened the Boston Symphony Orchestra season with an all-Ravel concert, singing Shéhérazade under James Levine. Other orchestral engagements included Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre with the St. Louis Symphony/David Robertson and with the New York Philharmonic/Lorin Maazel. [She] “used her warm, lustrous mezzo to expressively convey the conflicting emotions of loneliness, pride, nostalgia and despair before the captured Cleopatra’s suicide.” (The New York Times) Ms. Graham also sang Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Pierre Boulez and with the Orchestre de Paris/Christoph Eschenbach, participated in performances of Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ with Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra/Charles Dutoit and returned to the Met in a new production of Iphigénie en Tauride mounted especially for her.

 

“Rattle and the Berliners are capable of taking one’s breath away” – Gramophone

 

“The velvety-full voice of Susan Graham” - Berliner Morgenpost

 

EMI 2162240