Charles Munch, Orchestre De Paris - Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique / Brahms: Symphony No.1 (1968) [Japan 2018] PS3 ISO +

×

Charles Munch, Orchestre De Paris - Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique / Brahms: Symphony No.1 (1968) [Japan 2018] PS3 ISO +

Close

Charles Munch, Orchestre de Paris - Berlioz: Symphony Fantastique / Brahms: Symphony No.1 (1968) [Japan 2018]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 97:29 minutes | Basic Scans included | 2,5 GB
or DSD64 2.0 (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 2,22 GB
or FLAC (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | Basic Scans included | 2,09 GB

Many people say one should not combine German & French music in the same programme, but considering his background it seems perfectly valid to me: I’ll leave you to decide. The Paris Orchestra was newly formed at the time of this, it’s 1st recording, but the performance is miraculous considering that an orchestra ensemble is not something that can be refined overnight. The engineering values of these Voix de Son Maître/EMI recordings, with the same team that made the great recordings of the Société des Concerts & André Cluytens (René Challan & Paul Vavasseur) are very strong, though the greater reverberation tends to mask some details that are clearer in RCA’s Living Stereo approach, where the acoustic of Symphony Hall in Boston figures prominently. Each of these accounts is in its own way haunting, together leaving an apt portrait of the artist Charles Munch had become since Boston. The Fantastique is, like its leader, contagious in its enthusiasm. Compare the precise woodwind playing from Boston as heard in the difficult last 60 seconds of the Fantastique with the results from Paris—a good juxtaposition of the French esprit with Bostonian savoir faire.

The Brahms’s 1st Symphony leaving the sensation, in the long introductions of the 1st & last movements, of a soliloquy suspended over the passage of time: all lyric, with very little beat & almost no footfall at all – so drawn out as inevitably to suggest the conductor’s unwillingness to bid the work a last farewell. The outer movements are noticeably longer than the BSO versions. The famously sentimental close of the 2nd movement features violinist Luben Yordanoff in his prime. Munch probably over-slows the “alphorn call” toward the beginning of the 4th movement, but flutist Michel Debost responds in a way that confirms an icy stasis. The warm C-major theme begins slowly, too, but the heroism is soon straining to get loose.