Latest News: Classical, Berlioz (composer)
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Recording of the Week,
Berlioz's Les nuits d'été & Harold en Italie from John Nelson in Strasbourg 18th November 2022Vocal shape-shifter Michael Spyres tackles the song-cycle in the original orchestral keys, whilst viola-player Timothy Ridout is a warmly collegiate soloist in Harold on this clear-eyed, affectionate recording from Strasbourg.
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Video Interview,
John Nelson on Berlioz 7th March 2019Ahead of his performance and recording of the Grande Messe des Morts at St Paul's Cathedral tomorrow evening to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, the American conductor talks to Katherine about his fifty-year relationship with music which 'lit something up in me that's remained all my life'.
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Recording of the Week,
Berlioz from François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles 18th January 2019Tabea Zimmermann and Stéphane Degout are the soloists in period-instrument performances of Harold en Italie & Les nuits d'été.
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Recording of the Week,
John Nelson conducts Les Troyens 24th November 2017Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres triumph as the doomed lovers in Berlioz's Classical epic, recorded live in Strasbourg earlier this year.
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Recording of the Week,
Valery Gergiev and the LSO perform Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette 8th July 2016James enjoys Berlioz's dramatic setting of Shakespeare's immortal love-story with Valery Gergiev and the LSO.
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Favourites,
Hector Berlioz Katherine takes up the 'Presto Recommends' baton this week and selects some favourite recordings of works by Hector Berlioz.
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Recording of the Week,
Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts from Paul McCreesh 3rd October 2011With a massed choir of English and Polish singers and an orchestra which deploys as many authentic nineteenth-century instruments as possible, McCreesh plays up not only the sound and fury of Berlioz’s super-sized Requiem but also the astonishing range of textures which the young composer summons.