Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14, H. 48

Album review

Archipel presents historic recordings in 24-bit remastered sound for its Desert Island Collection, but the advances in digital technology don't necessarily improve the value of the analog originals or make them any more desirable. The 1955 recording by André Cluytens and the Köln Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz has been cleaned of a good deal of tape hiss (though by no means all), but in a way, this is like stripping varnish off an antique, only to expose its underlying defects. The monaural masters sound airless and dry, without a sense of depth or resonance, and the single microphone is seriously overwhelmed in tutti passages, so there are few advantages to refurbishing this old recording, except for the sake of preserving Cluytens' boisterous interpretation. His reading is skillful and even exciting, once one gets used to the boxy sound and occasional pitch distortions due to the stretched tape. But this rendition is not suitable for building a basic classical collection, and it is not recommended to anyone coming to the piece for the first time. Nor is the filler, a 1952 recording of the Roman Carnival Overture; even though Leopold Stokowski and the NDR Symphony Orchestra give this rousing work a vigorous run-through, the sound is quite fuzzy and thin and various background noises distract from the music. Both the Symphonie fantastique and Roman Carnival are available in numerous fine recordings, so castaways considering which CDs to take to their desert island should leave this one behind and seek a good DDD version instead.
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