Berlioz- Grande Messe des morts

A magnificent valediction from the master Berlioz conductor…

This utterly imposing performance of Berlioz’s grandest work was one of the last great triumphs of Sir Colin Davis’s long and illustrious career. That career, which spanned nearly sixty years, covered an astonishing breadth of repertory but he will be particularly remembered for his championing of Tippett, Sibelius and, of course, Berlioz…

Here is a recording to treasure which takes its place alongside Sir Colin’s 1969 recording and Paul McCreesh’s recent version as the best in the catalog.

The interpretation is masterly by a man who knows Berlioz perhaps better than any other conductor in the world. Everything about it is judged as just right, and Davis is one of the few who consistently realizes that the lyrical propensities of the composer are as important—especially in this work—as the more grandiose and bombastic passages. As an interpretation this is as good as it gets, the equal of any recording on the market.

This is an expertly shaped performance by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus as well as the London Philharmonic Choir by the masterful Sir Colin Davis.

This is an essential purchase – a first-rate reading of a religious work that combines both entertainment value and spiritual uplift.

The two concerts in Saint Paul’s Cathedral in June 2012 upon which this recording is based were colossal events. I attended the first of them and have rarely been so moved by the magnificence of stately music superbly rendered. LSO Live has captured the moment with remarkable fidelity.

The combined London Symphony Chorus and London Philharmonic Choir sing magnificently throughout, and the LSO play with the dedication and commitment reserved for their veteran President.

The four additional brass groups that Berlioz deploys in three sections of the Requiem make a terrific impact as do the battery of timpani, especially for those listening in surround. To the mainly slow moving and devotional sections of this transcendental and majestic work, Davis brings a wonderful sense of dignified and spiritual repose.

In this live recording of Berlioz’s Requiem, made at last year’s City of London Festival, the enigmatic rising phrases that launch the work continue to reverberate hauntingly in the surrounding silences, and the tone of the combined LSO and LPO choirs — singing beautifully and bringing out the music’s profound sadness — is wonderfully enhanced. Colin Davis fits the work to the conditions with a master hand. Memorable.

Davis distils a lifetime’s practical expertise with Berlioz into a performance that is noble, thrilling, intimate and richly satisfying. His orchestra plays for him as if possessed and the massed choirs are exceptional in what they deliver. Tenor Barry Banks provides just the right combination of sweetness and power in the Sanctus, his one solo.

This, his last-ever Berlioz recording, demonstrates yet again his unique empathy with and understanding of Berlioz’s music as well as his authority in conducting it.

Malcolm Hayes is struck by conductor Colin Davis's masterful understanding of the music, and the near-perfection of sound, in the London Symphony Orchestra's remarkable new recording of Berlioz's epic Requiem.

Barry Banks, sounding some way off, is effortlessly mellifluous. Whether in 2012 or 1969, Colin Davis is a must-have.

This may be the most purely beautiful Berlioz Requiem on CD.