Search - Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Gennady Rozhdestvensky :: Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique; Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini

A dull 'Symphonie fantastique' barely offset by an exciting

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 03/24/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I was misled by a gushng review in the Gramophone into buying this lackluster CD. The Berlioz is in dull, cavernous stereo form 1971, the venue being Albert Hall. Rozhdestvensky, who can tactfully be called a vairable conductor and impolitely called a lazy one, gives Symphonie fantastique a generally staid reading that occasionally erupts with loud, crude energy.



The Tchaikovsky raises the stakes considerably. It's a fervent reading, in mono from 1960, of Francesca da Rimini. The Leningrad Phil. is much more involved in this work, but a strong Francesca is hardly enough to salvage a reissue that is one of the weker ones form BBC Legends."