Online Store - Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust

	List Price: $11.98 Our Price: $9.97 Your Save: $ 2.01 ( 17% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: EMI Classics
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Binding: Audio CD EAN: 0094638149323 Format: Original recording remastered Label: EMI Classics Manufacturer: EMI Classics Number Of Discs: 2 Publisher: EMI Classics Release Date: 2007-04-24 Studio: EMI Classics
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Editorial Reviews: Specially priced 2-CD set in space-saving brilliant box with accompanying three-language booklet. Digitally remastered to the highest standards at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: A viscerally exciting Faust with excellent soloists Comment: I was ready to give this EMI budget two-fre of Berlioz's Damnation de Fuast three stars, strictly on my memory of Georges Pretre's bald-faced, sometimes brash conducting. But once I begn listening again, a lot caught my ear. It's always a god sign when Faust's treacherous opening solo is well sung, and Nicolai Gedda is first-rate, singing with apparent ease and lovely style. Then there's the very French orchestra and chorus. They add a particular flavor that even the greatest orchestras outside France can't match--Berlioz sounds at home in Paris, as Johann Stauss does in Vienna. Even though the mezzo doesn't have a large part, I originally bought this recording for Janet Baker, who is intense and superb in every way--as she is in the filler, her classic recording of La Mort de Cleopatra (which can be had in several reissues; I'd find oe with the latest remastering since the sonics here are a bit thin and edgy). By the time I got to Gabriel Bacquier's exciting and sinuous Mephistopheles, a really nasty, confident devil, I was hooked. It's only because of the staggeringly strong competition from Myung-Whun Chung and Igor Markevitch, both brilliantly performed in the Gallic vein, along with estimable version from Colin Davis and Charles Munch, that I can't quite put this set in top place. It certainly has a great deal of drama going for it, however, and the wide-raning sonics are thrilling. More Reviews