Finding A Way In

Berlioz is another of those composers with the reputation that you either "get" him or you don't. And thus far, I have had difficulty in getting him but think that in time that could maybe change. This disk is an easy one to get a handle on ( I do also have the Symphonie Fantastique elsewhere on the shelves ). By the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique led by John Eliot Gardner, the main work is Harold En Italie with viola soloist Gerard Causse and there is a coupling of Tristia featuring the Monteverdi Choir. Harold En Italie is part symphony, part viola concerto, part tome poem based on the tale of Childe Harold. The use of a central motive for Harold on the viola predates Wagner and Strauss by a considerable degree. Tristia, although a makeweight on the disk, is the work that could give me a gateway further into Berlioz because the soft choral writing begins to appeal and maybe would open the way for something like L'enfance Du Christ. The themes tackled in Tristia are a religious poem by Thomas Moore and Shakespearean ideas around Ophelia and Hamlet.