Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris gave an unforgettable performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique at the BBC Proms last September, the electric atmosphere of which is not quite replicated on this recording, made in Paris a few months later.
It’s all played with consummate skill by an orchestra who are clearly responsive to their conductor’s every move, as they were in Royal Albert Hall, and Mäkelä’s shaping of Berlioz’s music, from the gentle, vibratoless violins at the beginning to the careering witches’ dance of the finale, remains highly coloured and full of impact. Yet it all feels a little clinical; the edge-of-the-seat excitement is missing. Perhaps it has been engineered out: the sound feels over-tweaked, and although the spatial effects at the beginning of the third movement – with the cor anglais duetting with a faraway oboe – come over beautifully, elsewhere it sometimes feels as though we’re being shown exactly what to listen to.
The symphony is paired with Ravel’s La Valse, which fares better: the orchestra are again on sparkling form but here the energy keeps on fizzing. Mäkelä keeps the tempo whirling and the momentum rising; by the end the whole thing feels held together by centrifugal force alone.
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